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Chapter Text

TIME'S CASTAWAY

Chapter 1: A Fish Out of Temporal Water

The song flowed through him and came in waves that danced around him, cooling his blood. The waves of the music crashed over him, stinging up and through his nostrils and hitting him with physical force. The young man exhaled and watched bubbles escape his mouth to float to the surface of whatever mysterious place he was in. The water that intruded past his lips tasted of salt.

“How did I get to the sea?” he thought.

His chest hurt, his lungs screaming for air. He kicked for the surface and saw a blue object floating out in front of him.

“The Ocarina!"

He reached for it, but it floated away from him and then down into the depths. Darkness edged the periphery of his vision. The flow of water buffeted his body. It flowed into his throat and rushed into his lungs like knives. Suddenly, a curious calm came over him, along with the darkness. The young man wondered if this is what dying was supposed to feel like and then knew no more.

The sun shimmered on the sands and warmed the shoulders of a little girl who bounced along the beach. She sang a little nonsense song to herself as she headed to her special lookout tower. The people on the island said it belonged to everybody – it was the place where they watched for merchant ships and visitors, but Aryll knew that it really belonged to her. It was the place where she would watch the seagulls. It was also her older brother's favorite place to take naps.

Her older brother – Link… He was gone now, off on some adventure without her. Just thinking about it was enough to make her pout. He had to go do important Hero-stuff. She would have been resentful, except that he'd told her that she needed to take care of Grandma. Grandma couldn't go on dangerous sea-journeys like he was on and she would be lonely if she didn't have someone to stay home with her to keep her company. So, Aryll was content to say, just to keep Grandma happy.

She wore her blue, flowered dress today. She had a pink one with skulls on it that Link's pirate-friends had given her, but Aryll thought that dress was special. She was going to save it for when she got to go on adventures. It was an adventure-dress.

The noise above her was almost deafening. My! Her gulls were excited today! She watched them gather on one section of the beach she could barely make out between the tall grasses. Her toes played with the grainy sand beneath her feet as she watched the pale birds land and lift off. The little girl wondered if a dead gyorg had washed up. That happened occasionally, but she didn't smell anything putrid or fishy.

Aryll parted the grass and jogged up the portion of beach. She gasped and she felt like her heart had leapt into her throat.

Oh, please, Goddesses, no!

"Big Brother?" she asked tentatively. The figure lay motionless on his side, arms splayed out with his cheek resting in the sand. The salt-kissed breeze played over his blond hair and his long green hat.

Aryll's thoughts raced. She imagined a great storm, her brother tossed overboard of his friends' pirate ship… him running into rocks in that little red boat he skimmed the waves in, it splintering out from under him… or worst yet… had he and his pirate friends been involved in a fight with other pirates? Did they stab him through the gut and toss his body overboard to wash up here? In any case, her brother lay here dead! Dead! Leaving her and Grandma all alone!

Just as she was beginning to cry, she noticed strange things about him, things that did not fit with her fears.  She looked at the corpse more closely as she shivered.

There was no blood on the sand. Link sure had gotten bigger since the last time she'd seen him. No… this wasn't Big Brother. This corpse's legs were long and lean, the calf-muscles creating nice bulges in the white tights that clothed them. His face was different, too – older, more serious. Aryll walked around this unfortunate person.

She felt very weird. He looked so much like Big Brother – like a version of him grown up. The dead man had to be around eighteen, possibly twenty. Why was he wearing those funny clothes? The green Hero's Clothes were something for little boys when they turned twelve. Kids didn't usually wear them for more than a year. Some only wore them the day of their birthday to please the adults and never put them on again. Link went away wearing the Hero's Clothes; then again, he was declared the Hero of this age. He'd found the Triforce of Courage and everything, which made him the Hero of Winds, so it was okay for him to wear the Hero's Clothes for as long as he wanted to. Also, Big Brother was a weirdo.

This man had a sword and shield on his back. They were a little different than Link's. If he'd been shipwrecked or tossed overboard, they'd probably weighted him down. Poor guy. Aryll didn't know what to do. Should she say a prayer to the Goddesses or to the wind deities for him like Grandma had taught her to do when a pet or person died? Should she go get one of the adults? Maybe she should get Orca… if the man had a sword on his back, maybe he'd have wanted warrior's rites and Orca was the only person on the island who knew any of that stuff. As it was, she was mad that he looked so much like Big Brother and had scared her like that. It wasn’t that she wasn’t sad for him; it’s just that she did not know this person.  Her thought that she’d found her Big Brother kept a chill in her bones.

The seagulls were picking at his exposed ear. It was long, like the ears of people in her family. The birds were trying to get into a little pouch on his belt. He probably had food or something inside of it – very soggy food.

Aryll's eyes went to a piece of driftwood on the beach – an appropriately long stick. The girl picked it up and trembled as she poked the body in the belly. Poke. The chest – Poke. She prodded the chin, moving the head a little.

One of the hands twitched. The sand-flecked eyelashes fluttered. The body groaned. Aryll screamed and dropped her implement of exploration. The young man hefted himself to a sitting position, shaking his head.

"Are you alright, mister?" Aryll yelped. "I'm sorry, I thought you were dead!"

The figure moaned softly as he contemplated the blur in front of him. He blinked and wiped the sand from his face.

"A little girl?" he questioned. He looked around himself. The waves lapping on the shore and the sound of seagull cries filled his pointed ears. "Where am I? Can you tell me where I am?"

Aryll was taken aback. This man was spouting gibberish at her. He spoke at her forcefully, his face twisting into all kinds of shapes, beads of sweat forming on his distressed brow. It was almost funny.

She shook her head. "I don't understand anything you're saying, mister."

The young man suddenly started pawing in the sand. He got up, walked into the surf and started pawing around in the wet sand as if he was looking for something.

"Mister, what are you doing?"

The young man swayed and shook, falling to his side with a grunt. Aryll stepped up to him, letting the cold water of the ocean spill over her tender little feet. She cautiously reached out and touched his shoulder. "You're hurt," she said.

He looked up, his face quizzical and sad.

"You're hurt," she repeated. "You should come with me. My Grandma will make you some soup and it will warm your insides and make you feel all better."

"I'll be okay," he said. "Need to find it..."

"Are you from one of the distant islands? I don't know what you're saying. No one around here speaks like you do. Yep! You must be from far away, huh, mister?"

"What are you saying? Leave me alone…. Wanna sleep…"

The man closed his eyes.

"No! No!" Aryll insisted. His eyes were open now. "Don't go to sleep! You might die if you do that, silly guy! Come on. Come with me. My Granny will help you."

She tugged at his outer tunic urgently. The man seemed to get the message as he sat up and then stood up. Aryll grabbed his right hand and started walking slowly toward home. The stranger walked with shaky motions, but he was walking, which was a good sign. Aryll noticed a sharp smell on the air. She guessed it was coming from the man's clothes. He smelled like vomit. She didn't see anything nasty down his front. He had probably thrown up seawater when he'd first washed up before blacking out on the shore.

Aryll chattered as she walked, hoping it might make the stranger feel better even if they couldn't understand each other's words. "We'll get you a nice warm bath, maybe something to eat if you feel like it, and then we'll find out where you're from! It must be like Outset because of the clothes you wear. Those are birthday-clothes for boys when they become men, but they don't wear them as long as you have, mister. They're supposed to be clothes like the Hero of Time wore, but he's supposed to be just a legend or dead by now. My big brother is the Hero of Winds and he said he found a kingdom beneath the sea, but he might be lying. He makes up stories sometimes, but that Tetra-lady said it was true, so it probably is."

"Sure are a talkative little thing, aren't you?"

"You'll like it here for as long as you need to stay. Everyone on Outset Island is real nice… I live with my Grandma. Big Brother used to live with us, but he's out in the sea trying to find a new land for people to settle and he said something about rebuilding the kingdom from the legend. I think he should have stayed here with us. I miss him lots. You'd like him. He looks a lot like you."

A young pig waddled by. This caught the attention of the green-clad stranger.

"Ganon," he said; his word clear to Aryll's ears.

"No, no, no!" Aryll insisted. "My big brother took care of Ganon! Ganon was this evil, evil man who locked me and other girls up and was making monsters appear everywhere – Link defeated him and he'll not ever bother us ever again! It's safe here! Was Ganon chasing you? You're safe now, okay?"

"Ganon," the young man repeated, pointing at the pig. "Gan-on."

"Do you mean the pig? Piiiig. Pig."

"Pig," the man repeated with a smile.

"I guess ‘ganon’ is what you call a pig in your language, huh?"

Indeed, it was little known to the residents of the islands of the Great Sea that the terrible evil that had so recently threatened them all was a man who shared part of his name in the ancient language with the common word for "swine." It would have been no surprise for them to learn that the pig was the sorcerer's personal totem-animal.

"Rin-ku," the man said softly, smiling down at Aryll and motioning to himself.

"Link. My name is Link."

The way he pronounced his name sounded vaguely to Aryll like the name of her brother, but it came out of the man's mouth with a heavy accent of some sort.

"Rinku?" she questioned.

"Close enough."

Aryll pointed to herself. "Aryll. Ah-rill."

"Aryll."

"Good! Good! We can teach each other! You know, you sound like old man Sturgeon when he reads from old books and when he curses sometimes. I was there when he hit his thumb with a hammer once and he sounded just like you! It was weird. We're here!"

Rinku was tracing the design on the front door of the dwelling they had come to with his left index finger. He seemed to be fascinated by it.

"Come on inside, silly. You're probably still all woozy." She opened the door. "Grandma!" she called, "We have a visitor! I found him washed up on the beach. He's a little funny-looking but he seems really nice. He's still sick, so I told him he could rest here."

A short, wrinkled woman hobbled out from behind a partition. "Oh, my, my, my," she declared, "You poor dear. Why are you wearing such clothes? You seem too old for your get-up."

"He looks a lot like Link, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does. Come on, young man, sit! Sit!"

Rinku looked at the old woman quizzically, his grip tightening slightly on Aryll's hand.

"I don't think he understands you, Grandma," the little girl explained. "When I found him he was speaking all weird, like some other language."

"Oh, my, the poor boy might have a head-injury." She took Rinku's left hand and led him to a chair. "Let's get that sword and shield off you. Maybe Orca can help you, if you are a warrior."

Aryll let out a scream and her grandmother cringed as Rinku suddenly flinched back, whipping his sword out of his scabbard. He stood tense and panting, eyes wide, as if even he didn't believe what he had just done.

The old woman held up both her hands and Aryll cowered by her side. The young man sheathed his sword and started jabbering what seemed to be some sort of apology. His face carried a look of pure contrition.

"I am sorry," the grandmother said. "I shouldn't have touched your sword like that. You were just acting on reflex, weren't you?" Her voice was calm. She tried to speak in the most soothing tones possible. "Poor dear… you really must be a seasoned warrior to have reflexes like that. I'll let you take your things off."

"You can trust us, Rinku," Aryll added. "We won't hurt you."

"Rinku?" her grandmother questioned.

"Yeah. I think that's his name. He learned mine. Rinku, this is Grandma. Grrraaaand-maa."

"Grandma," the young man repeated as he stripped off his heavy equipment. He sat down heavily in the nearby chair with a sigh and groan of pain.

The old woman approached him cautiously. She touched his arm gently. "You need to be looked at."

The young man smiled slightly and said something to her that she didn't understand.

"It sounds like how Sturgeon speaks when he's mad, doesn't it?" Aryll asked, "Except Rinku's not mad."

"It does, actually," Grandma acknowledged. She put a hand on the young man's back and traced it up his side subtly, checking his ribs for injury. He seemed to understand what she was doing. "I am not a professional, but I used to do a little healer-work back in the day. It would seem you've been tossed around a bit, but I think you'll live. A little rest, a little of Grandma's soup and a hot bath and you'll be just fine."

The old woman hobbled to the hearth and stirred the pot that was resting over it. She had been fixing lunch for herself and her granddaughter. She had the soup on almost perpetually, anyway – it was one of those special dishes that took the residue left behind by the last batch and built upon it. This soup-pot had been going for seven generations, or so the family legend had it. According to the story Aryll's grandmother had been told when she was Aryll's age, the first batch of soup this pot was host to was made before the Great Flood and had, since those days, it had been imbued with a special kind of magic.

The old woman set out bowls upon the dining table for their guest, for Aryll, and herself. "We'll all have lunch together," she said with a sweet smile.

"You'll like Grandma's soup, Rinku!" Ayrll said excitedly as she sat down near him. "It's the bestest soup in the world!"

Rinku took a spoonful.

"This is wonderful"! he exclaimed. "I can taste magic in this. There's a warm tingling throughout my body… like fairy-magic or a potion, but not like a potion because this actually tastes good."

Aryll and her grandmother understood exactly one word of that sentence.

"Fairy?" Aryll questioned. "You know about fairies?" She made a fluttering motion with her hands.

"Fairy?" Rinku responded, making a motion with his finger that mimicked a healing-fairy's dance around an injured person.

"Yeah!" Aryll laughed, "They heal people!"

The young man turned. There were many faces pressed against the window. Men, women, a little kid with a snot-dribble coming from his nose peered in at him. The people of Outset Island were curious about the stranger in their midst.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Big-Big Brother

Link (or "Rinku" as the islanders knew him) sat in a stone basin carved into the ground, soaking in hot water. The bath house was fed by a natural spring and was surrounded by a simple structure with a tile roof. That little Aryll-girl had led him here and had taken his clothing (presumably to be washed and mended) and had left him here alone. Link had left his shield behind at the house but his sheathed sword lay next to him on the outside of the basin. He never parted with it, even when he bathed.

The Hero of Time tried to figure out how he had gotten to this strange place. It certainly felt like it was more than a dream. He had been in the royal garden of Hyrule Castle playing music. He'd held the Ocarina of Time; an object possessed of great magic and was experimenting with it. As there were several songs with the power to alter nature that could be played upon the thing by him and other special persons, there were a number of songs he'd found to have no magical effects. It had been his instrument of choice ever since Zelda had given it to him – even after the nightmarish events he'd experienced in the land of Termina.

He'd wanted to create a new song for Princess Zelda. He'd been courting her for some time, with full permission of the Royal Family and court. He was a Hero, after all, and an investigation of history evidenced that he had come from a noble bloodline. His exploits in one timeline were remembered only by certain people, but he'd made a name for himself by becoming a protector of his land in the timeline he'd returned to live in.

Link had let his fingers fly over the sacred Ocarina, twitching his ears, inventing a new melody, becoming one with the music that he'd played. He'd purposefully avoided incorporating any parts of the known magical songs into his playing, which is why what had happened confused him now. He'd invented many of his own songs that did nothing special whatsoever. Apparently, he'd discovered or invented some kind of new warp song and was now in a distant country where his spoken common Hylian was unknown.

The Ocarina of Time was gone. He had a vague memory of seeing it float away from him while he was being tossed in the ocean. He had to get it back… but he did not know how. He'd walk along the beach around this island to see if it had washed up as soon as he could. As it was, despite the magical properties of the old woman's soup, he was a bit sore. He also wanted to make an effort to find out exactly where he was.

"Rinku?" a small voice called.

Aryll cautiously entered the bath house, staying to the shadows. She held out a stack of folded clothes. Link stayed in the basin, the steaming, murky waters covering his lower half.

"We asked around and borrowed these," Aryll said. "They used to belong to Mr. Orca's son. We don't know if they'll fit you, but we thought they'd be the closest thing we've got."

She set them down next to the bath and paused. Aryll let out a little gasp and then quickly averted her gaze. "I'm sorry!"

Link was confused. The hot spring waters had a fair amount of silt and mineral content, so things that little girls shouldn't see weren't showing. Then he noticed one of his arms and looked down at himself. The marks were pale and they were not many, but he had that fierce-looking one down the upper portion of his left arm, that long one across his chest and the remains of a pair of round puncture wounds over his stomach... and that one lava-burn…

Yeah, he thought. The scars. She's probably not used to seeing something like that.

"Sssh," he soothed. "It's okay. They don't hurt anymore."

Aryll turned. "I guess they aren't so bad… I've seen traders and shipwreck survivors with worse. You must really be an adventurer, huh? Big Brother showed me a few scars he got from monsters. At least they aren't on your face or somethin'. Anyway, you should try on the clothes. I'll wait for you outside."

Link got out of the bath and donned the offered clothing – a pair of faded orange pants and a cream-colored shirt with brown triangle designs stitched into the collar and sleeves. Everything was a bit loose on him, but fit well enough. He tied up his damp hair – his hair was nearly shoulder-length when it was down and he usually kept it tucked into his hat – and he met Aryll outside.

"You look good," she said, "It's a little baggy, but it looks good on you. Come on, Rinku. People are waiting for you at home."

Aryll skipped down the trail and Link followed, holding his sword and scabbard by the strap.

"You know," she said turning to him, "you do look so much like my Big Brother; maybe I should call you Big-Big Brother."

Link shrugged as they approached Aryll's home.

"You said that his sword was coated in gold?" a voice inside asked someone. This voice was deep and tough.

"Yes, gold designs." – The voice of Grandma.

"It might be a very old sword, then," another male voice said. "Gold is usually quite a soft metal and nothing one would want to temper a weapon with, but legend has it that there is a special kind of gold that knights of old used to have added to their swords that actually improved the blade. This shield of his is definitely one of the Old Hylian models."

"It is a bit unlike the family shield," Grandma said.

"Quite," the older-sounding male voice replied, "Yours is a Knights-Line shield, this one is one of the more common varieties. I could compare it if I can find a reputable antiques dealer on Windfall. It's got some scratches – as if it's actually been used for battle, actually. Otherwise, it seems to be in excellent condition. It seems new – it is likely a replica."

Aryll and her new Big-Big Brother walked through the door. "Mr. Orca! Mr. Sturgeon!" she called. "He's here! This is him! This is the guy I found on the beach this morning!"

Two old men peered at Link. The bare-chested, sinewy one gave him special scrutiny. His eyes darted immediately to the sheathed sword.

"My, he does look like our little Link, doesn't he?" Orca said, "And he has a rather fit build."

"He's got scars, too!" Aryll blurted out.

"Aryll!" her grandmother scolded.

"I saw them… in the bath. Oh, don't worry; he was in the water so I didn't see anything else!" She traced over her heart, "He's got this long one over his chest… and this weird burny-looking one..!"

"Aryll!"

"They're really cool! Don't worry, Grandma, you know he doesn't understand what I'm saying."

"You are still being rude, my dear." She looked to the young man. "Are you all cleaned up now, Rinku? I bet that bath made you feel better. These men are Orca and Sturgeon. Orrr-ca. Stur-geon. They think they can help you."

"Rrrinku," Link said, taking each of their hands in greeting.

"Link," Sturgeon said simply.

"Hmm?" Grandma and Sturgeon inquired at the same time.

"That is his name – Link," Sturgeon explained. "That is an old pronunciation."

"Really?" Aryll asked, bouncing, "So Big-Big Brother really is like Big Brother!"

"Big-Big Brother?" her grandmother asked.

"Yeah!" the child answered, "I want to call that because he looks so much like Big Brother and he seems so nice, he's bigger, though, so I have to call him something else."

"I know you miss Link, honey, I do, too, but I'm not sure adopting a stranger is right. We're going to find out where he's from so we can get him home right away."

"But…"

"We'll call him Rinku for now. It's easier."

Sturgeon adjusted his glasses. He scrutinized "Rinku" uncomfortably close. "I do not know of any islands off-hand that would still speak the old language. Attendants of the Great Valoo on Dragoon Roost are required to learn it in order to communicate with the dragon, but one must be a Rito for that job. Perhaps we can ask our postman about it. He flies far and wide."

"Can you talk to him, Mr. Sturgeon?" Aryll asked. "He sounds like you when you're reading old books and trying old spells."

Sturgeon muttered, and then looked up to Link. "You…understand what I say? Old language."

Link's ears perked and his face took on the look of a child getting a new present. The old man was speaking broken words and his grammar was terrible, but he knew Hylian!

"Yes! Yes!" Link said excitedly, his hands gesticulating, "Finally! Someone who speaks Hylian! Where is this place?"

"You be at this place on Outset Island."

"Outset? I've never heard of it. My warp-song must have brought me far. Do you know where Hyrule is from here? Has anyone on this island seen my ocarina wash up on the beach? It's a little blue-ceramic flute, in the shape of a gourd. I know ocarinas aren't very common… This one's special. It's the Ocarina of Time and it belongs to the Royal Family…"

"Hold on, son. Going fast. Hyrule is legend. Place of stories. Gone place. Our Hero searches for New Hyrule."

Link scratched his head. "I don't understand."

"You can't be of Hyrule. Hyrule is a non-existent place now."

Link's face took on a look of pure distress. Aryll hugged his middle. "What's going on, Rinku?" she asked.

"That can't be right. I was in the garden, playing music. I can't have traveled through time again, could I? I suppose that could have happened, me being the Hero of Time and all…But why would I come to this place? Did the goddesses and the Ocarina send me here because you are in danger like Termina?"

"The Hero of Time?"

"Yes. That is my formal title, given to me by the Sages and the Royal Court. You probably haven't heard of me here, though, if this place is far from Hyrule. I am only known in Hyrule and in Termina…maybe Holdrum, Labrynna and Calatia, but I would not be considered a person of rank there, like at home."

"What's wrong, Sturgeon?" Aryll's grandmother asked.

Sturgeon sighed heavily. "This man is insane," he concluded. "I don't know whether he lost his mind before or after his episode with the ocean… he may have suffered brain damage in the waves, but considering the clothing he arrived in, I'd say he was long gone before he needed our help."

"Whatever do you mean?" Grandma asked. Aryll hugged her Big-Big-Brother tighter.

"He thinks he's the Hero of Time," the old scholar said, earning an incredulous grunt from his brother.

"Are you serious?" Orca asked.

"He certainly seems to be," Sturgeon answered. "Maybe he was a scholar, studying the Hero's life and that is why his poor brain has kicked into speaking a form of the ancient language. It doesn't matter. This young man is very ill. I am going to compose a letter to some of my contacts on Windfall. They may know a good hospital for those infirm in mind."

"No!" Aryll protested, "We can take care of him!"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Orca said, "He carries a sword. He may be dangerous."

"We should at least take care of him until we find out where he's from," Grandma said. "I don't think he's dangerous at all. We did spook him, earlier, but he only reacted the way you would if we tried to take one of your spears from you and he apologized for it. This old woman may not have understood a word he said, but I know by his face he was sorry."

"Perhaps I should ask him to surrender his weapon," Sturgeon asked.

"No!" Orca said forcefully. "That is one thing you must never ask a warrior. He really will think we are a threat and may lash out."

"He's peaceful!" Aryll contended. "If he wanted to hurt any of us, he would have done it by now!"

The two old men and the old woman stood around and muttered. Link sat down, not sure of what was going on.

At long last, Sturgeon addressed Link. "We people of Outset – people of peace. Let my brother take care of your sword, please. For a while. You are a stranger – fear you a little."

"Why would you fear me?" Link asked. "I've carried my sword all this time and have harmed no one. No one has given me a reason to hurt them. This blade is for monsters and demons. If I ever deliberately took the life of an innocent person, I'd have to, by my honor, take my own."

"Well," Sturgeon muttered, "I am sure he's lost his mind, but he's certainly got the honor part of the Hero of Time act right." He turned to Link again, "Please… for us, until we know you better. Orca takes care of swords here. We go to him if we need weapons for fighting."

"Okay," Link answered, reluctantly handing over his sheathed sword. He did not know the reasons for the distressed look upon the old man and his brother or the weirdly compassionate look he was getting from Aryll's grandmother, but he figured that this place must truly be a peaceful haven. He decided to go by the old saying; "When in King Zora's Domain, do as the Zora do." He wondered if these people had any idea the great amount of trust he was placing in them by letting go of his weapon.

Link watched quizzically as the two men exited Aryll's home. He was surprised when Grandma hugged him. She had such a pitying look on her face.

"You poor, poor boy. We'll take good care of you. I promise."

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Hero of Time

Link spent much of his time with Aryll. She taught him her games - as best as she could without knowing his language, collected shells with him and tried to teach him words for various things around the island. He helped her to carry jars of fresh water with Sue Belle and aided her in other chores. He pulled weeds in Mesa's yard for him and he caught wild piglets for Abe and Rose.

He and Aryll had breakfast one morning at their home. Rose had invited them in for sausage, ham and crispy bacon. Aryll would never forget the look on her Big-Big Brother's face when he made the connection, nor the sharp sound his fork made clattering on his plate when he dropped it.

Her Rinku walked along the beach a lot. She knew that he was looking for something and tried the best she could to help him, though she did not know what he was looking for. She brought him all kinds of odds and ends – rusted keys, a pocket watch, even an old empty treasure-chest that had found their way to Outset's shores. He only shook his head sadly and continued to search.

She watched him one morning, walking along the sand, looking out at the ocean forlornly when Orca came up behind her.

"I wonder what he's looking for…" the old warrior said, "My brother has been sending out letters, but no word has come back regarding anything of help to our mystery-man."

"I want us to help him," Aryll replied, "but I'd be happy if he never goes home."

"Huh?" Orca yelped.

"I like him. He's like family now with me and Grandma. He reminds me of Big Brother."

The old man put a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "We have to think about what's best for him, sweetheart. If you ask me, I don't think he's nearly as addle-brained as my brother thinks he is. Look at the way he carries himself! He has a determined stance. If he were crazy, I think he'd act more…broken. He doesn't look like he's ever been broken."

Aryll looked up to her elder. "I know he's a warrior, 'cause he's got warrior-scars. I know! Maybe you can spar with him! You can take him to your place, give him his sword back and see what he can do with it! We can let him know what you want by having him watch you and me spar!"

"Wonderful! Ever since I saw that sword of his, I've been itching to try him in combat. I'm sure you'd like to show off your skills, too. You have a ways to go, but your skills have been getting sharper of late."

"Maybe I'll get in twelve strikes this time!"

"It would be nice if others on the island would show as much interest as you and your brother have."

"It's because of Big Brother! With him gone, I've gotta protect the island! I've been on an adventure and stuff already, so that means it's up to me!"

Orca laughed. "Go fetch Rinku and meet me at my dojo."

The room was dark but Link instantly recognized it for what it was due to the weapons on the walls. He also noticed the fierce jawbones that hung as decorations.

That one looks big enough to have belonged to something as huge as that evil fish that almost ate me in Termina, he thought. I was a Zora then… A bit regretful that I do not have access to that mask now, with all this sea...

Suddenly, Link missed his mask collection. Certain pieces were never truly his to begin with. The Deku, Goron and Zora masks that had allowed him to change his form were pieces he had given to the family and friends of the deceased people to which the faces had belonged. He'd hoped that their souls would fly free, seeing as he had finished their business in the mortal realm. The Fierce Deity mask was something that he'd taken with him to Hyrule and had sealed in a tomb with the help of Princess Zelda. She had enacted a multitude of magical protections upon it, for he greatly feared it falling into any hands but his – or even his again, for that matter.

As for the rest of his masks, they decorated one wall of the chamber he had in Hyrule Castle. The once-Hero woke up every morning to see a display that some visitors found creepy. He enjoyed entertaining Zelda with some of the masks. He remembered the time they'd laughed after he used the Bremen Mask to march every single animal at Lon Lon Ranch out into Hyrule Field - chickens, cows and horses all in lockstep. Malon had socked him in the jaw and laid him out on the ground for that. If he hadn't fallen for Zelda, he thought that he could have easily fallen for her.

He watched as Orca handed Aryll a spear. He stood apart from her holding a spear of his own. Link gaped as the little girl came for the old man with the fierce determination of a trained soldier. The spears clashed – their shafts clattering against one another and their heads creating sparks as metal met metal. After several blows, Aryll was sent to the floor. She grunted as she got up and gave Link a broad smile to show that she was un-injured.

Orca rummaged in a chest and brought out Link's sword and belt. The young man took it from him, surprised. He went to the back of the room and took up his spear again. He gave Link a nod. Knowing what he meant, the castaway girded his gear on over his borrowed clothes and brought out his precious gilded sword.

The old man was tough! He countered every strike beautifully. He was tricky, too. Link grunted and panted as he dodged. He almost had his feet swept out from under him several times. Link knew that this was just a sparring session, but he honestly wondered if Orca was trying to kill him.

Orca, for his part, was impressed. The kid was swift. He hadn't seen such determined fighting since Outset's own Hero of Winds had left the island – only their little Link had to build up his skill. This "Rinku" character fought like a well-seasoned warrior. Orca saw the look in the man's blue eyes. He worried, for several moments, if Rinku was trying to kill him.

"You fight like a Hero," Orca said between breaths.

"Hiyaaa!"

"Keep it up, son! I haven't fought like this since I was your age!"

Link narrowed his eyes, making them intense and hard. Orca noticed something strange on his sword-hand – his left.

"What in Nayru's blue sea is that?"

A golden glow was emanating from the young man's hand. It grew in intensity as the blows continued. Orca yelped as the tip of Link's sword came within an inch of the tip of his nose and the shaft of his spear was sliced in half with a clean snap.

The old man stared at him and panted. "That was… that was…"

The glow on the young man's hand retreated, but it was then that Orca noticed a mark that he had not seen before. Aryll hadn't seen it before, either. Had it newly appeared or had it been there the entire time, but faded? The mark was dark and golden. It was a mark that Aryll had seen on her brother's hand – a triangle made from three smaller triangles with an empty space in the center.

"That's…." Orca gasped, "That's the tri-tri-tri…"

"Triforce!" Aryll finished for him.

Orca acted like a man suddenly Poe-sessed. He dashed past both Link and Aryll. They could hear his frantic footsteps charging up the stairs outside and shouting.

"Sturgeon! Open up! You've got to get your giant head down here, quick!"

Aryll heard some mumbling about the racket being horrible conditions for studying. There was a surprised yelp and then there was more mumbling.

"Oh, you can't be serious," the other man's voice groused.

"Come see for yourself!"

Link sat across from Sturgeon at Grandma's dinner table. It seems that Aryll's residence had become the primary meeting place for long, deep chats. In any case, Link felt at home here, so it was a good place for examination. Sturgeon held his left hand, tracing the mark on the back of it gently.

"Don't be alarmed," Link assured. "That's just the Triforce of Courage. I've had it for a while now."

"It is," the old scholar answered, "I can feel magic from it. Your pulse still high. Is said to aid the bearer in adrenaline."

"I was fighting hard. Orca is very good."

"Yes. Hooligan-swordsman he is. There is problem in this…"

"A problem?"

"The Triforce of Courage already exists in our world. One from our island bears it…Aryll's brother… Is out exploring the Great Sea. He, too, is named Link. I am sure Aryll has shown you pictographs of him. He is our pride – Good child. He is our Hero – the Hero of Winds. He found and together-put the fragments of the Triforce – the one you bear. This means your age is not ours. You are the Hero of Time."

"That is just what I told you from the beginning." Link answered.

"I am sorry - very. We are so sorry. Please forgive us."

"Huh?"

Sturgeon got out of his seat and bowed before Link's chair, touching his forehead to his sandaled feet.

"What? Why are you doing this?" Link yelped.

Sturgeon rose and took his seat again. "You are mighty legend here – the great Hero of Time! I did not believe you. I thought your mind had gone away. That is reason everyone on our beautiful Outset Island has been treating you childlike. Forgive us for such great disrespect!"

Link sighed and then gave the old man a gentle smile. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Everyone here has treated me kindly. There is nothing to forgive. In fact, I am glad that, thinking I was in such a state, that you cared for me. There are some societies that are not nearly so caring toward their mentally ill members. You could have set me out to sea on a boat or locked me up or something."

"We never do such bad things!" Sturgeon insisted. He then muttered. "You are outside of time."

"I figured as much," Link replied, scratching the back of his neck. "I seem to have lost my time-travel device. It's the Ocarina of Time – a small, blue ceramic flute, full of magical energy. The last I remember before your Aryll found me, I was playing it. I have been hoping that it would wash up on shore…"

"No one found it or object like," Sturgeon said with a sad shake of his head. "We keep looking, help you look."

"Where am I, anyway? I know this is Outset Island, but beyond that, I know nothing. If I am a legend here, I must be in what is, to me, a future age. Can you tell me what your people know about me? Maybe that will help."

"Don't know if will help," Sturgeon said, "but trying is good. Outset is one of islands many on the Great Sea. On Outset, we tell a story of the ancient kingdom. No one knows what happened to it, just that it was land before ours. It peaceful kingdom, enjoying many good things until great evil creature – sorcerer – came to disturb the peace. The goddesses rose a Hero to use the holy sword. Young Hero traveled through time – child and man. He saved the kingdom and banished the evil one. The ancient kingdom had peace – the Hero left. Now young boys wear clothes like the Hero's when they come of age as an honor."

Link sighed fondly, "Yes," he said. "It all kind of happened by accident, actually – at least at first. An evil man, Ganondorf, cursed my… my father, I guess – not my natural one. The Great Deku Tree was the guardian-spirit to the forest tribe I spent my childhood with. The curse killed him and I was sent out of the forest to find Princess Zelda. She sent me to collect the sacred Spiritual Stones because of a dream she had – her dreams always come true. By the time I was ready to return to Zelda, Ganondorf had orchestrated a coup. I tried to get the Master Sword so I could stop him, but its energies sealed me in the Sacred Realm for seven years. I grew up asleep and then was sent out to awaken the Sages and save the kingdom. I was able to travel through time in a limited fashion through use of the Ocarina of Time and the Master Sword – it served as an anchor-point between the seven years. I defeated Ganondorf, and his alternate form, Ganon…"

"Pig," Sturgeon said, grinning.

"Yes, 'Pig," Link answered with a nod. "He had the Triforce of Power, which allowed him a monstrous form – a large pig-demon with horns. He nearly killed me, but with the help of Zelda and the Sages, I put him down. I sealed him away. After that, Zelda took the Ocarina of Time and sent me back to the timeline I'd started out in. I did not want her to, but she insisted that it was not right for me to have missed the seven years of my life that I'd spent sealed. After that, I left Hyrule to search for a friend of mine who had left me. I wound up falling into another kingdom – or another world… something like that, and preventing its end."

"We know one legend only," said Sturgeon. "The Hero of Time sealed the monster Ganon, then left. Many years after, Ganon broke seal, brought many bad things upon old kingdom. Many died. People prayed to the goddesses for help. Prayed for you to come, but you never did. The goddesses sent rains to flood the land. The old kingdom is no more."

"No more? Flood?" Link asked, his face going ghostly white.

Aryll and her grandmother entered, their hands laden with plates. They had been preparing a meal for everyone. "What's wrong with Rinku?" Aryll asked.

"Why have you waited to come NOW?" Sturgeon lamented. "You came late!"

"I don't understand!" Link insisted. "I just want to get back to Hyrule! I left for a time, but I came back to it! Hyrule was fine when I was playing music in the garden!"

"Hyrule is gone kingdom! Is dead!"

"If I am sent back…" Link began - Then he realized something and his face took on a look of horror. "What is the very end of your island's legend, Mr. Sturgeon?"

"I already told you. Hyrule is the ancient kingdom. Is long gone now. We have our Hero, the Hero of Winds – legacy that you not fulfill. Ganondorf rose again on our sea – he put down. Our child told us of kingdom remains beneath waves of the Great Sea. Hyrule is dead by drowning. You go away just after putting Ganon down. No record of you after."

"Another timeline…" Link muttered. "I did many things in Hyrule after I came home from Termina – the doomed world. Also, few people know the story of how I put down Ganon, just the Sages and my dear princess, really. The Ocarina of Time may have split dimensions when I was sent back to my own time, maybe. I couldn't come back. The way was sealed to me."

"Hmm…" Sturgeon muttered. "If so, means that even if we find your time-travel device, go home you may not able. You are  now outside of time and space – space-time."

"It brought me here."

Link got up and stepped outside, leaving the food set before him and Sturgeon untouched. Orca walked along the beach outside, looking at the waves. Aryll followed Link at a distance as he strode with angry purpose.

"Leave him alone, child," Sturgeon cautioned. "We talked of things that may be too much for him right now. He needs to think."

Suddenly, Link ran for the beach and dove right into the cold waters of the ocean.

"What?" Aryll, her grandmother, Sturgeon and even Orca, who was apart from them, said at once.

"Kingdom beneath the waves…" Link mumbled to himself, getting sea water in his mouth. "Hyrule, I'm coming home!"

Something in his mind had snapped. He clawed at the waves desperately as he sought to swim further out and further in. He felt himself being dragged back. The strong arms of Orca had him by the ribcage.

"No!" Link cried, kicking. "Home! I have to go home!"

"What are you doing?" the old warrior demanded. "You are going to kill yourself! Get a hold of yourself, boy!"

"Please…" the Hero of Time's eyes streamed tears. "I caused all this! The flood… I killed Hyrule! I have to return to it! Zelda… please forgive me, Zelda…"

"He's calling a girl's name," Aryll noted as Orca pinned Link to the beach. Mesa came running up over the dune-grasses to help. Aryll watched Link's eyes roll back into his head and his body go slack as Orca gave him a swift hard hit to the back of the head. She squeaked.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded.

"He's out," Orca sighed. "He should sleep for a few hours. I hope I didn't give him a concussion, but as he was goin' he was going swim out to sea and drown himself. Maybe you were right, Sturgeon. Maybe he really is as addle-brained as you think."

"Not at all, you lout!" Sturgeon groused. "That man so happens to be the legendary Hero of Time! Hold your gasping. He has been displaced from his time. I'll explain all inside. You and Mesa get him to bed."

"Is he really the Hero of Time?" Aryll asked as she watched her Rinku being picked up and carried by the legs and arms.

"It would appear so, child."

The adults were talking and had sent her outside. Aryll got pieces of the story before she was sent outside to play. She pouted and then climbed up to her lookout tower. She scanned the sea with her telescope – a new one that Grandma had bought for her after her brother had taken her old one. This one was a newer model with neat capabilities, but she missed her original scope. Big Brother had better be taking good care of it!

She saw something interesting out on the horizon. She thought it was a ship, but she couldn't tell what kind yet. She thought it was pretty big – a freighter or big merchant ship of some sort. Outset hadn't been getting a lot of merchants lately, so if they stopped by here, it would be very good for the island.

She heard the sound of feet coming up the ladder. She turned around to see Link with a bandage wound around his head. She pocketed her telescope and ran to him, tackling his waist in a hug. He laughed slightly.

"Are you okay, Rinku? Orca hit you pretty hard."

"I'm okay," he said, knowing what her question was without knowing the words.

"That was really mean of him, but I guess you needed it. You were being a big dummy."

He leaned up against the wall of the lookout, his arms on the railing.

"You look so sad, Rinku. Mr. Sturgeon says it's 'cause you can't go home. Is that it? You can stay with me and Grandma. We'll take extra special good care of you, I promise."

Link looked out at the sparkling ocean, letting the salt breeze play with his hair.

"We kind of worship you, you know," Aryll continued. "If you really are the Hero of Time. You're a legend, 'cause you saved the old kingdom once. That's why boys like Big Brother dress like you when they turn twelve. They're supposed to want to be like you – brave and strong."

Link put a hand on her back, as if to thank her for trying to make him feel better.

"Do you want to look through my telescope?"

Link took the proffered tool and looked through it. "There's a ship out there."

"Do you see the ship? It's a big one, but it's still far away."

She took her telescope back and took another look. She started gasping and babbling excitedly. "B… buh… That's Big Brother's ship! He's coming home for a visit! Here! Keep watching!"

Aryll clambered down the latter, leaving a confused Hero of Time looking down after her. She started running all over the island, shouting at the top of her lungs.

"The pirates are coming! Big Brother's ship! Big Brother is coming home!"

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Hero of Winds

"Rinku! Come on! Let's go get fairies!"

Aryll tugged Link by the hand, eager to have him follow her up the trail. They both wore belts laden with empty bottles that clinked and clattered as they ran.

"We're going to go see the Great Fairy!" she said excitedly, "We'll get lots of fairies before the ship arrives!"

There was a reason Aryll wanted to go out to collect healing fairies. The last time her Big Brother had come home for a visit, he and his pirate friends were horribly sick. They had eaten some bad food a couple of days before their arrival. They'd taken away several tins of a spiced chopped ham and pork shoulder mixture, a special recipe created by Rose. The pirates reportedly loved the stuff (all save Captain Tetra), but decided that eating that one slightly bulging can was a mistake they'd never repeat. Even countering it with potions had not cured them (although it may have saved their lives).

When they'd landed, every one of them was throwing up everywhere and looked like death warmed over. Young Link couldn't even keep his grandmother's soup down until the islanders had gathered fairies to heal everyone. Aryll doubted that they'd be in the same state now, but with her Big Brother, she wasn't going to take chances.

Aryll had spotted the ship yesterday and by early this morning, it was close enough in that docking was expected this afternoon. The islanders had made many preparations, but no grand celebration feast like they would have loved to start arranging, just because of the nature of the last visit. Abe had dug a pig-roasting pit. He and his wife had butchering knives and mops and buckets for the pirate ship's deck in equal states of readiness, depending upon what was most needed.

The Hero of Time, meanwhile, was dressed the part. Link had donned the clothing he'd arrived to Outset in, freshly and lovingly mended by Aryll's grandmother. According to what Sturgeon had told him, it would be the best outfit for him to meet their Hero of Winds in. Link had been told the boy's story in as much detail as Sturgeon was able to give. He'd wished Aryll could speak Ancient Hylian. He was sure that her version of events would have been more entertaining to listen to than the stodgy old scholar's. He was teaching her slowly, though, just as she was teaching him. They each had a few common words between them now, "Pig," "Seagull," "Grandparent," "Ship," "Sea," "Sword," "Shield," "Big Brother," "Little Sister" and "Love."

They'd always had "Fairy." It was one of the few words that Link found had not changed in this strange future-time. Familiar feelings swept over Link when he entered the Great Fairy's cavern. There were little fairies everywhere, sparkling and white. They were a little larger than the fairies Link knew back home, with their features readily visible rather than hidden beneath intense balls of light. Aryll swept them into her bottles with complete disregard for the sadness on their tiny faces. Link had always felt rotten when he'd captured healing fairies. Even when he could not see their features clearly, he was certain that they did not enjoy the experience. What's worse is that the people he was raised with partnered with fairies. A guardian fairy to a Kokiri child was like a parent – some might say one-part parent and one-part lover, without the sexual connotations of the latter, but with all the passionate love. The Hero of Time had occasionally wondered if his own guardian fairy, Navi, had harbored a crush on him, as she had acted the part. She assured him that her healing fairy relatives did not mind being bottled nearly as much as they looked it sometimes. In any case, it had been necessary for survival. The healers were always freed after healing or reviving him.

His ears twitched as he felt a magical wind about him. Aryll stopped what she was doing and gasped. "Rinku!" she said. "Look! It's the Great Fairy!"

Link was taken aback. He heard tinkling laughter, like bells. He had not heard the loud, horrific cackling like he'd come to expect from the Great Fairies. The creature floating in the center of the cave, above the waters, was an elegant entity. She appeared as a dark woman with light clothing and had four arms – one pair of which might have served as wings if she'd wished to appear that way. The bottom part of her body curled like a dancing ribbon. The Hero of Time felt soothed by her form. Back in his time, the Great Fairies he'd met with were dangerous, wild fey who wore naught but trailing vines, combat boots and too much make-up. As brave as he was, he'd always feared that they might kill him, or exact a price for their magical favors through the use of his supple young body. He wondered if perhaps approaching them during the first part of his first quest was what had qualified him in the beholding of the Triforce to be the bearer of the Triforce of Courage. He was always grateful to wander out of a Great Fairy cave un-molested. He had no such fears with this Great Fairy.

The Fairy spoke, her voice deep, even and ageless. "Little Aryll of my island," she said affectionately, "and the Hero of Time. What an honor."

"Forgive our intrusion, Miss," Aryll replied, "Rinku and I just came here to collect fairies 'cause Big Brother Link is coming home and we were worried he and the pirates might be sick again like last time. You know the Outset motto: Be Prepared!"

The Great Fairy laughed.

Link turned to Aryll and pointed at her. "I…. I understood you! I understood everything you said, clear!"

"Rinku? You can speak to me?"

"It is a function of my magic," the Great Fairy explained. "I am afraid it is only temporary while you remain at my spring, but the two of you should have no language-barrier here, or at the springs belonging to my sisters."

"Oh, I wish it were permanent!” Link exclaimed, “There's so much I wished I could hear from you and not through that older fellow. He's not just shaky with my language, but a little dry."

"You have such a beautiful voice, Rinku!" Aryll chimed. "I mean, you always have, but hearing it in way I can understand is really cool!"

"Link. My name is Link, actually, but you may call me Rinku… my accent made you hear it that way, I suppose."

"I can't call you Link. That's Big Brother's name and you're Big-Big Brother."

"You are far from home," the Great Fairy intoned, casting her gaze upon Link.

"Yes," Link answered with a sigh. "From what I've been able to gather, I am not in my own time. This is the future, if I'm not mistaken."

"Hmm," the Fairy pondered, sending a wave of magical energy over him to return to her. "It's been nearly two-hundred years since your time. You are also displaced in place. You are currently in one 'what if' while you belong to another 'what if."

"I'm not sure I understand your meaning, M'lady," Link answered. "The older gentleman… Sturgeon if I'm getting his name correct… was trying to explain it all to me. We both seem to think that a split timeline was created at the end of my first great quest."

"That is correct," the Great Fairy replied. "What has existed must always exist – including the things of Time. You did not re-create your world when you were sent back to live again as a child, you merely created a new world. Even that world did not escape the touch of Ganondorf, despite your valiant efforts."

Link's face had gone chalky. Aryll gently held his hand. "What do you mean? Zelda and I convinced the king to deal with him. He was imprisoned!"

"I am one of they that live outside of Time," the Great Fairy said. "I can see the many fragmented narratives. You shall, too, should you discover the Nexus. I must not reveal too much to you, Hero, but know this. Your actions saved many lives and the people of the generation after yours in both timelines knew only a life of peace. In your world, when the balance became tipped by Evil, a descendant of yours was chosen by the gods to put it down again. He saved Hyrule from darkness – quite literally, in fact."

She continued. "In this timeline, a suitable Hero could not be found, so the gods flooded the Beautiful Land to keep it from falling to Evil. The people climbed the high mountains and created the islands. It is a new culture, although it carries the ghost of Hyrule. The monsters and all evil creatures were drowned so that the peoples could live in peace. When Evil rose up on the Great Sea itself, the goddesses had found a suitable Hero – an energetic young boy with a great, courageous heart."

"My Big Brother!" Aryll piped, beaming with pride.

The Great Fairy laughed her tinkling laugh. "Yes, child, and he continues to seek peace and a better life for you all."

"Wait a minute!" Link said, "You said that in my own timeline, I have a descendant? I have not become a father yet… though, if I had my wish, I'd love to have a daughter like Aryll. If I have a descendant… that means I must find my way back home!"

"Precisely," the Fairy giggled. "You shall, in good time."

"But," Link ventured, "I lost the Ocarina of Time. I have been searching for it earnestly. I was beginning to accept my life here….though I miss Lady Zelda every day."

"Like all lost artifacts belonging to Time, it has gravitated toward the Nexus."

"Where is that? Where do I find this Nexus?"

The Great Fairy spread her arms in four different directions. "You must speak with beings that represent Time," she said. "You must converse with the Guardian of the Future, the Guardian of the Past, and the Guardian of the Present. Then, you must go to the Tower of the Gods and the Gate shall be opened unto thee."

Link sighed and slumped his shoulders. "I guess that means I'm ready for another quest. I suppose I'll have to search to find these Guardians. Why doesn't anybody ever give me anything more than cryptic clues on these things?"

"The Guardians are they that held the Goddesses' Pearls," the Fairy chuckled. "This is not a cryptic quest, Hero. You need to go home and all the good spirits of this world will help you in any way they can."

"But it's still cryptic! Who held the Goddesses' Pearls? I don't even know what that means!"

"Silly Big-Big Brother!" Aryll giggled. "My Big Brother Link sought the Goddesses' Pearls on his quest! He told me all about it! They were held by the dragon Valoo, who watches over the Rito people on Dragon Roost Island, the Great Deku Tree, who watches over the Koroks at the Forest Haven, and a big ol' whale-fish named Jabun! Jabun was hanging out in a cave on our island, but he swam back to his home around Greatfish Isle when it got better. The islands are easy to find, all we gotta do is sail!"

Link looked lost in thought for a moment, staring at his boots. He knotted his brow and closed his eyes. "The Great Deku Tree… he's here? He's alive?"

"Yeah!" Aryll said, "Big Brother said he was really nice and really old. I haven't met him yet, but I met his Korok friend Makar! Makar was so funny and he's great at playing the violin! He said the Great Deku Tree is father to all Koroks. Rinku! We get to sail and meet them!"

"Sail…" Link said, getting a faraway look in his eyes. "I've never sailed in my life. In fact, I'm pretty sure the first time I'd ever seen an ocean was when I was in Termina and even there it didn't seem as vast as the one I've been waking up to every morning."

"I know how to sail!" Aryll chimed. "I can teach you, and, yeah, if Big Brother is coming home, he might want to do this quest, too, since he's done it before! Maybe Tetra will even take us aboard her big ship! Nico even has a rope-swinging game if you get bored."

"Isn't it dangerous for a little girl to go sailing around a big sea?" Link asked.

"No more dangerous than it was for her brother," the Great Fairy remarked. "And we all know you've been wandering wild lands and swinging a sword from a young age, Hero. Farewell and good luck."

The Great Fairy spun and vanished leaving Link and Aryll to take their catch of fairies to the outside world.

"I hear laughter and cheering," Link announced, his ears twitching.

"Aw, I can't understand you anymore," Aryll pouted. She brought out her telescope and looked down the length of the island. "The ship's docked! Hurry! Hurry!"

Aryll's feet clattered over the rope-bridge and Link followed. They ran pell-mell down the trail Link had cut-clear earlier for them. Some might say that this reception for pirates was a strange thing, but the people of Outset thought of Tetra's crew as the Pirates Who Didn't Do Anything – at least that was the embarrassing pet-name some of the islanders had for their friendly outlaws. Tetra and her crew had taken on something of a "noble piracy." They only raided monsters and the occasional other pirate vessel to appropriate already stolen treasure. The fact that Tetra and her men only returned a portion of the booty to the original owners (if they could be tracked down) on the grounds of taking a "finder's fee" was enough grounds for some to still call them true pirates. Otherwise, they usually kept their spoils because the sad fact of treasure taken by monsters and pirates more vicious than themselves was that the owners usually had been slain in the robbery.

Still, Tetra and her crew of late could probably more rightly be called explorers or salvagers. They hunted the treasures of the world beneath out of the sea and they sought new islands and a new land.

Aryll ran to a small figure clad in green and threw her arms around him. "Big Brother!" she cried happily. "You're home and you're not sick and you've gotten taller!"

The boy laughed. "You've gotten bigger, too!"

"Did you bring me a present, huh, huh?"

She was echoed by two small boys – Rose and Abe's sons.

"We've got some treasure to spend," Link of Outset admitted, "but we've got something even better. We have to discuss it with everyone."

Tetra walked up behind him, blowing a stray hair out of her face. "Who's that guy?" she asked, pointing to "Rinku." "I don't remember seeing him around this island before."

"Rinku! Come on!" Aryll said, skipping to him and grabbing his hand to lead him onto the beach where Tetra, her brother, Sturgeon and others were gathered.

"He's dressed like me," Link of Outset observed. "Looks a little old for the getup."

"You're too old for the getup," Tetra snarked. "I thought you Outset kids were only supposed to wear that for a year at the most. You've been wearing yours for almost two."

Aryll nodded to her brother and Tetra, then to her Big-Big Brother. "Link, Miss Tetra, this is Rinku. He's a castaway. I found him washed up on the beach a little ways from here. I thought he was dead, so I poked him with a stick, but he woke up. We've been taking care of him."

Rinku looked at the kid who looked almost like he did when he was younger. "It is an honor to meet the Hero of this era," he said before dropping to one knee and dipping his head in a deep bow.

"What did he just say?" the younger Link asked in confusion. "He sounds like Lord Valoo or the Great Deku Tree… and why is he bowing? I….people do that to me sometimes, it's embarrassing! Please, guy, get up!"

"Up, Link," Sturgeon said. Rinku obeyed and shot the Hero of Winds an awkward smile.

"Rinku doesn't speak our language," Sturgeon explained. "He's been learning some of it, but his native tongue is the ancient speech. Our guest, as it turns out, is the Hero of Time."

"No way!" Link protested. "Are you sure he's not just some guy who hit his head or something?"

"The Hero of Time left us generations ago and should be dead by now," Tetra added.

"That is what we thought at first, as well," Sturgeon muttered. "Then my hooligan brother challenged him to a swordfight and discovered something very interesting. Link, hold out your left hand, please."

"Um…. Okay." The boy held his hand out and yelped when he saw the mark of the Triforce of Courage resonating with a glow that pulsed in time with his blood.

Tetra looked down her shirt at the necklace she wore. "It's throbbing, too," she said.

"Hold out hand, Hero," Sturgeon instructed to the elder Link. Rinku held his hand out and allowed Sturgeon to remove his gauntlet. The Triforce brand on his hand glowed with a golden light. It pulsed in the same manner as the mark the Hero of Winds bore.

"But…. But how?" Link said, staggering back, his face pale and his already large, expressive eyes wide.

"He is the Hero of Time," Sturgeon humphed. "From what he has told me he was warped here through an unfortunate accident."

"Mr. Sturgeon! Mr. Sturgeon!" Aryll spoke up, "I've got something important to tell you! The Great Fairy-"

The Hero of Winds suddenly withdrew his sword, struck it into the ground, and bowed with it toward Rinku. "The great Hero of Time," he said slowly, "It is my honor to meet you. I am not great, I'm just an awkward kid, but I hope that you will accept my attempts to carry on your legacy…"

It was Rinku's turn to be embarrassed. He yelped and sweat and gesticulated with his hands. "No! No! No! Get up! Please, don't bow to me! There's no need!"

Sturgeon and Aryll both laughed. Tetra rolled her eyes.

"It seems that they are both most humble," Sturgeon commented.

Rinku watched Link get up. The kid refused to meet his gaze, his eyes to the ground.

"How about a handshake?" The Hero of Time offered, holding his hand out.

Link took it shyly. One left palm met another left palm. Suddenly, arcs of light formed around them, traveling up their respective arms. Light as from an exploding firework jumped out from the backs of their hands. Both young men screamed in surprise and apparent pain. They were thrown back several feet. They landed unconscious and smoking.

Tetra ran to Link and looked him over. In an uncharacteristic show of tenderness, she held his head in her hands and knelt to lift him up into her lap. Sturgeon immediately saw to Rinku. Aryll was torn between them both and just looked on. Everyone else mumbled and muttered in confusion, awe and concern.

"He is breathing," Sturgeon announced from Rinku's side.

"Link's okay," Tetra sighed as the young man she held groaned. "What was that all about?"

Sturgeon stroked his chin. "Well, they both possess the Triforce of Courage – something there is only supposed to be one of in the world. Link's is of the present, while Rinku brought his with him from the past. There is definitely something of a temporal nature going on here… perhaps it is unnatural for a time-displaced fragment of the holy relic to touch itself?"

"If that's the case," Tetra said, shaking her head, "I guess my idiot is lucky he didn't get zapped to oblivion."

"Quite."

A fairy spun around Rinku, spurring him to awaken. He sat up and held his head.

"Nudge's nasty cooking," Link muttered as he began to stir.

"Mr. Sturgeon! Mr. Sturgeon!" Aryll insisted.

"What is it, child?" the old man asked.

"WesawtheGreatFairy!" she explained, running her words together, "Rinku and I saw the Great Fairy and she made it so he and I could understand each other – but only when we were in the fairy grotto – and, and! She said there's a way for Rinku to go home, but we gotta go on an adventure and-"

"Slow down, child. What now?"

"There's a way to send the Hero of Time home!"

Chapter Text

TIME'S CASTAWAY

Chapter 5: Lost and Found

Aryll wore her adventure-dress. Her Big Brother's pirate friends had bought it for her a while ago – they had not pillaged it, they'd bought it free and clear because, according to Gonzo, a fine lady like her deserved honest goods. Then again, they were the kind of pirates that hit coffee-bars as soon as they made landfall instead of bar-bars. They sure could eat, though, at least when they were healthy. The homecoming feast had lasted three days. It had been such a big event, in part, because of the presence of the Hero of Time.

The little girl was helping her Grandma pack some extra clothes for herself and for him. Grandma fussed over new things she had made for her Big Brother Link, mostly muttering about adjustments that she'd had to make due to a change in his measurements.

"You're both growing up so fast," she clicked. "Pretty soon, you'll both be taller than your old grandmother and skinny as string beans, just like your father."

"I don't remember him," Aryll said sadly. "Link does, but…"

"He would have been very proud of you both," Grandma said with a smile. "Now, do you think that will be enough for Rinku? We don't know how long the journey will be."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he and Big Brother never changed clothes at all!" Aryll laughed, "The Hero of Time is always shown wearing the same thing in the old woodcuts and Big Brother wears those Hero's Clothes 'till they turn all ratty! He thinks they're magic!"

"They may well be. I've heard that clothing can pick up fairy energy if a set is worn around enough fairies."

Aryll contemplated the shirt she'd just finished folding. It was the shirt they'd given Rinku when he'd first arrived. "Good thing Orca gave us these for Rinku. He said they were from his son, but doesn't everyone call him a bachelor? If he's a bachelor how can he...?"

At this, her grandmother's face turned as red as a ripe tomato. "Um… dear… um… Well, you see, just because a man's not married doesn't mean…"

"I thought you needed a man and a wife to make a kid…"

Grandma sighed. "Orca may seem gruff and tough and only interested in combat, strength and honor… but he's had lady-friends. His son left on his own adventure years ago. He's not on speaking terms with the mother anymore. I think Rinku reminds Orca of young Bruce a little bit."

"Orca's very happy 'cause he's been getting to have sparring matches with the Hero of Time!"

Grandma laughed. "Between him and Link, Orca's been going toe-to-toe with two Chosen Heroes, at once, no less! He's been breaking a lot of spears, but he can die a happy man."

"I don't want him to die…"

The old woman slipped folded clothing into knapsacks. "Come on, we must see if everyone's ready."

The two Links, Sturgeon, Gonzo and Tetra were gathered at a large table that had been dragged outside to the dunes. Spread out upon the table was a huge map, which Tetra was tracing with a pointer. Link of Winds was seated in a chair, looking it over. Link of Time was standing and had his hand on the boy's shoulder. With some experimentation, the two found out that they could touch each other, so long as their left hands did not make contact. The beating they'd taken earlier was the result of the two Triforces of Courage touching and nothing more.

The Hero of Winds and the Hero of Time told each other of their respective adventures with the help of Sturgeon (and some help from Aryll, who was beginning to understand more of the ancient tongue all the time and was eager to chip in if she thought she could). Link of Time found it interesting how Link of Winds' story involved the reassembly of the Triforce in whole, yet here was the fragment of Courage present in his body and Tetra had her necklace. He recounted how something similar had happened to him; he was certain that traveling the winds of time back into the world of his past would have negated his possession of the Triforce of Courage, since he'd gone back to a time in which the whole Triforce still rested in the Sacred Realm. Yet, there was what he'd called the "Brand of Farore" on the back of his left hand. He was certain that the Triforce's power had helped him when he'd been in Termina – for he had needed much courage there.

It seemed that, in the end, eventually, the portions of the Triforce – or at least their essences – returned to their holders. This made the Hero of Time concerned about this world belonging to the Hero of Winds. If the new Hero had his portion of the Triforce back and the pirate-princess held Wisdom, where had the Triforce of Power gone? The younger Link had assured him, through translation, that Ganondorf was an inert stone statue at the bottom of the sea, sealed and as dead as the old sorcerer could get. The Hero of Time was not assured that he'd stay that way forever, especially if someone discovered the Master Sword and thought it a fine treasure to collect. Both Heroes knew more than they ever cared to about seals and the breaking thereof. While only a true Hero could draw the sword, there was the future to think of and both young men suspected the gods of being forgetful and scatterbrained from time to time – not that either of them would ever share such potentially dangerous thoughts with a Sage or a priest.

"There is much rich land – this big… 'mainland," said Tetra. "I've never seen an island so huge."

"That is because it is not an island," Sturgeon said, adjusting his eyeglasses, "It is like the land of legends – land larger than many islands all put together."

"There's already people there," the Hero of Winds added, "but there's so much land that people from here could settle on it, no problem. The folk there have interesting magics. There are also really cool animals."

"Horses," "Rinku" said, pointing to a portion of the map that had been drawn on. They had been crudely drawn, by any professional artist's standards, but he recognized easily the four-legged figures dancing across a corner of the parchment. "I love horses."

"They're like the ponies out on a pair of islands in the far east," Tetra said, noting where the young man was pointing. "My crew and I tried to capture them to make money selling them once, but we couldn't quite manage it. Those shaggy little ponies have nothing on these mainland horses. They're huge!"

Rinku took up a spare pencil and a blank sheet of paper that was on the table for taking notes and quickly drew a skillful rendering of his dear Epona from memory.

Tetra's jaw dropped. "Like that…" she said, "They look just like that."

Rinku pointed to the drawing and then to his heart and wore a look on his face that told everyone "She was mine and I miss her."

"Yeah, Rinku draws really good!" Aryll said as she and her grandmother came to the table. "He plays music really pretty, too – Grandma let him borrow her old wooden flute since he doesn't have his ocarina. Maybe you should conduct him, Big Brother."

At this, Link of Winds became sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I don't know about that, with him bein' the Hero of Time…."

"You'd do fine, dear," his Grandmother said. "I take it everything has been decided?"

"Yeah," Tetra spoke up, "My crew and I are going to have a furlough on Windfall. That lady at the coffee shop has had it too good for too long… And I've got to make sure the bomb merchant's staying in line. It's not like we can have an easy passage to explore that 'mainland' without Link. It's a pretty far sea journey to it without using the cyclones – he's the one who puts the wind in our sails. I can't believe the kid beat up that annoying frog-god…"

Link laughed a small, humble laugh. "It was kind of a fluke, actually."

"He only listens to you. You forgot to make him extend benefits to your friends."

"Friends? At the time, the last I'd seen you, you put me in a catapult!"

"Don't forget I got you those bombs you needed, too! Or, more accurately, you stole them from me! You weren't riding the cyclones yet then!"

"Yeah, but… before that you put me in a catapult!"

"You wanted to save your sister, didn't you?" at this, Tetra turned to Aryll, "The looks on his face were priceless!"

Aryll was laughing. So was Rinku. He'd heard of how Tetra was actually the heir to Old Hyrule… his Hyrule, and of how she was of the royal line of "Zeldas," but she was delightfully rough and rude – a true princess of pirates. While Rinku had not understood their conversation outright, he got the some of the feeling of it from observing the looks on Tetra and Link's faces. Tetra wasn't even quite like his Sheik – his dear Lady Zelda's alternate persona, taken to survive in dark times. Sheik could fight, but Sheik had a calm manner, rational, philosophical. Tetra….almost reminded him of Tatl, the sarcastic little fairy he wound up partnering with when he was in Termina.

"The boat we've got isn't quite large enough to hold my skiff, I'm afraid," Link said, referring to a large boat secured to the dock and to his little red one-man sailboat, respectively. He knew that the King of Red Lions wouldn't mind being left behind for this adventure because the boat did not have a soul anymore. It was just a boat and had been since the end of the adventure that had made him a Hero.

Link was attached to that boat, but he'd been using it less and less simply because he'd caught himself trying to talk to it many times only to remember that the spirit that had once been his companion had gone to the land of the dead. He'd found himself saying "Oh…yeah…" too many times and a pang of grief would come back to him.

In his time back home on Outset, he'd noticed the legendary Hero of Time getting a wistful look in his eyes whenever he looked at a fairy, like he'd felt the same thing directed at fairy-kind. They'd released most of the ones that Rinku and Aryll had caught previously, only opting to keep the ones that expressed a desire to come with them. Unfortunately, they still needed to be confined to bottles as healers had an overwhelming drive to return to their spring once released. They were not like the companion-fairies of legend which could stay with a person at-will. Fortunately, fairies had little need to eat or drink, no need to excrete and were immune to most temperature conditions, so they could be kept for years, if need be. (But only very cruel people or the tragically forgetful ever kept a fairy bottled for more than few weeks).

According to Link, Grandma's soup could keep indefinitely, too. He and Aryll had been stocking the boat with that along with the fairies, tinned food, fishing equipment (after Ganondorf's defeat, fish had returned to the seas, teeming), clothing, blankets, towels (because one should always know where one's towel is), Link's weapons and oil and polish to keep them clean and working well.

Aryll, her Big Brother and her Big-Big Brother were going out on their own. After Aryll explained the instructions given by the Great Fairy to everyone, it was decided that Rinku should retrace part of Link's quest, with Link as a guide. Aryll was coming along because she'd insisted upon it – also because Sturgeon was too old for the sea anymore and she'd been learning some of Rinku's words. She also had a way of keeping the young man calm and easy.

As they were making final preparations, Tetra ran up to Rinku, holding something very strange in her hand. She gave it to him. The Hero of Time was puzzled. There were three large, gold-plated forks tied together with golden wire and a white ribbon.

"I thought you'd get a kick out of that." Tetra said. "I found it among some dead guy's treasure-horde taken by bokoblins. Maybe Aryll or the old codger could explain it to you. I couldn't stop laughing when I found them… after Link and I'd had our run…"

"What are they?" Rinku asked.

"Those…. Are the Triumph-Forks. Or so someone thought. Some poor idiot thought he'd found ultimate power in some cheap, knock-off treasure someone cobbled together to make some rupees fooling idiots."

"Tri…"

"Triumph-Forks."

Rinku looked at the forks, then at the back of his left hand. "Triforce?"

"Yeah," Tetra sighed. "The people of this island kept the legend alive. You've seen their doors…. The triangles on their doors. But even they didn't have the name for it, so Link tells me. Funny how things get lost through history… and found again. Keep them. Think of them as a false relic for a real, living relic."

"Triumph…. Forks. Triforce." Rinku shook his head.

"I heard that there were some folks out on the ocean who were looking for a sacred 'bucket and hose,' too. Still others seek a 'Captain Threefoot.' Imagine that… I wonder if Link and I and our adventures terrorizing the evils on the sea will become like you and your stories… just legends with fuzzy details. My mother used to read me stories about you… you and your Triumph-Forks."

"Come on!" Link shouted from the dock. Rinku bent down, took Tetra's hand in his, gave it a gentle chaste and knightly kiss and then jogged to the waiting ship.

Everyone on Outset Island, Tetra and her crew included, waved and shouted as Link commanded a wind to set them off. He waved with both hands to his grandmother, much like he did the first time he'd ever left home, only this time, he did not wave as long. He had work to do and this goodbye was far less bitter. He planned to return, as he had many times since then.

Grandma always seemed to have a few more wrinkles and seemed to be slower in her steps each time, however, and Joel and Zill were always taller.

Aryll was excited. She'd been on the sea before, but this was her first real adventure. Being kidnapped didn't count because she had no say in that adventure. This expedition was on her terms.

Rinku looked back at the island with a melancholy expression. He was shedding no tears and had stopped waving by the time the island had become a distant set of mounds in the mist, but Aryll noticed something off about him.

She tugged on his tunic sleeve. "Are you sad, Rinku?"

He gave her a little grunt and nod and continued to look back. He was thinking about how, once he found the Ocarina of Time and went back to his Hyrule, he'd never see this one – or its people – again.

"Termina," he whispered.

Puzzled, Aryll just hugged him around the waist. He smiled and put an arm around her. "It's okay," he said. "I was just thinking of something long ago and far away."

For the Hero of Time, this was like leaving Termina all over again. When he'd left that strange country, he'd promised to return to visit all the friends he'd made there. He'd never found his way back. The portal to it was lost somewhere in the ever-shifting Lost Woods. He'd seen the Skull Kid a few times. The Skull Kid could travel between the worlds, but by the time he'd seen him again after leaving Termina, the Hero had grown too tall and long-limbed for the creature to listen to him. The Skull Kid – just like every member of his species, was suspicious of adults. Not even his ocarina music could convince the Kid that he was an old friend. And so, Romani and Cremia, Kafei and Anju, Lulu and everyone else in that land were lost to him for the rest of his life.

If the people of Outset Island were anything to judge by, his and Zelda's accidental creation of this world wasn't such a tragedy. The people here were resilient and kind. Link of the ancient days could rest in that knowledge; even with the knowledge that this was a world that would be lost to him forever if all went according to plan.

The three spent time keeping the ship on course in shifts. More accurately, Aryll and Link manned the ship, since Rinku did not know how to sail. He almost ran them aground on a rocky islet when they let him try. They learned that the Hero of Time, while legendary, was not good at every endeavor.

He and Link spent a few hours sparring on the deck. They were almost equally matched, but the Hero of Time had some age and experience on the younger Link. Then there was that one move…. He'd demonstrated a move that left both the Hero of Winds and his sister gaping. Rinku leapt straight up into the air and then came down in a nasty downward stab, lodging the tip of his pretty gilded sword right into the wood of the deck. He wedged it loose, and then he nodded and gestured to Link like he wanted the boy to repeat what he had just done.

"I don't know if I can," Link said.

"Just try! You can do it, you're Big Brother!" Aryll cheered.

"That is one of my Hidden Skills," Rinku said. "They are special. I trained myself very diligently to master them. I invented them by necessity to survive many adversaries. I feel I can only pass them down to someone special – like another Hero. Since I have no son right now and you are the Hero of this world, I figure you could use them. I call that one the Ending Blow – you can end an enemy's breath before he has the chance to get up and getcha'."

"What's he sayin'?" Link asked.

"Something about skills…secret…" Aryll answered, "And you…Hero! Yes! I think he wants to teach you the stab move so you can kill bad stuff and not die and he likes you 'cause you're special."

A noise sounded on the wind. Aryll and Link immediately stiffened. Link readied his sword. Rinku gave him a confused look, but also readied his sword. He could sense the presence of evil on the air. The noise sounded again, grating his sensitive Hylian ears.

"What IS that? It sounds like a dying goat!"

"Kagoroks," Link spit.

Before anyone knew what was going on, something flapped against the sail and dark shapes blotted out the sun. Link passed his sister his sword as he retrieved something from one of his pockets. That something magically enlarged into a bow. Rinku, for his part, sliced at talons and wings. He felled one of the monsters, which landed in a heap upon the deck before vanishing into smoke.

"Stay back you horrid things!" Aryll shouted as she thrust and sliced. A golden feather fell before her.

"Link!" Rinku shouted as he jumped in the path of an enormous bird that had come up on the Hero of Winds as his back was turned.

"Rinku?" the boy asked as he saw the young man drop his shield and look down. Blood stained Rinku's tunic and a single, thin, sharp claw protruded from his chest. The kagorok pulled out and dropped him. Link knocked an arrow and willed the magic of fire into it. He let the missile fly. The bird let loose one last sound of pure agony as it was engulfed. It vanished in an explosive puff like magic-spawned monsters typically did when they died. Aryll took care of the last of their attackers.

"Rinku! Rinku!" they both shouted.

Rinku grunted and struggled, trying valiantly to pull himself up off the deck. He let loose a final, strangled sigh as he fell face-down, titled his head to the side and closed his eyes.

"Rinku! No! Don't die!" Aryll pleaded.

Her brother knelt and put his hand on the entry wound in the elder Hero's back and rubbed it gently. He gave his sister a grim look. "Aryll," he instructed, "Calm down and listen to me. I am going to guard him in case any more big buzzards come back. Go down to the hold and get one of the fairies. Bring it back up here, quickly!"

Aryll went clattering down the stairs.

"A heart-wound or one close to it by the looks of it," Link said nonchalantly. The boy looked up. "Yes, I know you're still around, I see you. I'm sure seeing spirits is something only some people can do. I began when I took my first quest. I don't think Aryll saw you at all."

The Hero of Winds saw a little green puff of flame floating over Rinku's fresh corpse. It shifted into the late Hero's form, silent, but with a confused look on his face.

"Aryll needs to hurry," Link said. "You're still warm, but once you start to cool and your spirit shifts into blue-mode, it'll be too late. You've still got the green of Farore's life on you. Don't look so confused. I'm sure you've been through this before."

The translucent spirit of the Hero of Time nodded, as if he understood everything that had been said.

"You probably understand me right now. You won't when you get put back into your body. Thank you for saving me. I know what you feel right now. I've been through this many times. Don't tell Aryll, though. I'm sure you won't be able to. I never fully remember my near-death experiences. Fairies give me a bit of amnesia. I think it's for the best."

Rinku gave him a sympathetic look.

"People think those Chosen by Destiny are so strong… invincible. Around the islands, I'm known as 'The Adventure Guy.' They have no idea how weak we can be.   It can all change in an instant. We get lucky most of the time, don't we?"

Rinku nodded sadly.

"The last time I was revived by a fairy… Tetra's ship was boarded by a crew of bokoblins and moblins. They weren't after treasure – they wanted to eat us. We all fought for our lives. I got a scimitar-slice to my right thigh – not normally something one would think would be fatal, but a major artery was hit and I bled out in minutes. Tetra had a fairy and saved me. She… actually had to tell me what happened, but I still have the scar to prove it. Again, if you remember any of this, don't tell my sister, okay? She worried about me a lot. I don't want to make her afraid."

"I got them!" Aryll yelped breathlessly as she appeared with an armload of fairy-bottles.

"We only need one," Link said, taking a bottle, un-corking it and placing it to Rinku's back.

"Oh, please don't be too late!" Aryll sniffled.

Link released the bottle and the fairy spun around Rinku. His visible wound mended, as well as his tunic. The blood dissipated. The young man remained unmoving.

"No! No! No!" Aryll cried, "Come on, Rinku! You have to get up and be alive! You have to go back home and be with your Zelda and have a happy life! Rinkuuuu, please!"

His body rose and fell beneath her. His eyes fluttered open. He groaned and sat up before examining his front. He let out a sigh of relief seeing his chest-wound gone.

"Don't scare us like that again!" Aryll scolded before throwing her arms around him.

"You hug like a Goron!" The Hero of Time complained. "My ribs! Ow!"

Chapter Text

TIME'S CASTAWAY

Chapter 6: The Future

"He can't be the Hero of Time! What kind of trick are you trying to play, Adventure Guy?"

"I'm not lying, Hoskit! He really is the ancient Hero! He traveled through time and got stuck! That's why we're here! We're trying to send him home!"

Nearly the entire Rito Tribe was gathered in the Commons of the mountain cavern that served as the royal palace and mail centre. Quill, the postman who served Outset Island, could have confirmed the claims made by the Hero of Winds and his young sister, but he was out running his route. It was said that the postal flyers were having trouble again in dealing with sudden changes in the winds, something they'd not seen since young Link had set sail to find new lands…

"I got her!" puffed a breathless Komali as he flapped in through a doorway. Following the young prince was Medli. The Sage divided her time between the Earth Temple, where she prayed, and her home, where she attended to the Great Valoo. The Rito had feared that they'd lost her forever when she'd awakened as a Sage – that she would have to stay in the temple or that she would be caught into the spirit world. Once young Link had defeated Ganondorf, the Sages of this age were no longer bound. The Master Sword that they'd prayed over had done its work. Far from being caught up in the spirit world, Medli tread both it and the material plane at will and, as she well knew, a living Sage had more power than a dead Sage.

"Good," his father said, looking to the boy and his companion. Our Sage will surely be able to ascertain the truth of this matter. The Chieftain stepped aside to let Medli see the three Hylians.

"Link! You're here, I'm so glad! I missed you!" Medli chimed, "And your little sister, too… but who is this? A big brother you didn't tell anybody about?"

"Um, sort of," Link fidgeted. "He's a guy that Aryll found washed up on our shore. He speaks a strange language, the ancient talk you do. He's also the Hero of Time."

"Whaaaat?"

"He traveled through time and got stuck!" Aryll explained. "We call him Rinku, 'cause his name's the same as Big Brother's, but he says it with an accent. The Great Fairy on our island said he needs to retrace Big Brother's steps to get home. We brought him here to talk to Valoo!"

"Alright…." Medli said tentatively.

Rinku approached her, offering out a hand for a shake. "Like I said about your postman, they look like Watarara. Pleased to meet you, Miss?"

"She is Sage," Aryll explained. "Sage Medli of…Dirt. Er… Earth."

Rinku laughed softly. He regarded Medli and dropped to one knee before her, bowing his head.

"Why is he bowing?" Medli yelped.

"I think it's because Aryll explained that you're a Sage," Link said.

"You never bowed to me like that… Come on, guy, get up!"

Link laughed. "You were my friend before you became a Sage. Besides, I've seen you get dizzy. Kind of hard to keep all solemn around you after that! Rinku is very respectful… he's a knight from the ancient time."

Rinku rose and took Medli's proffered hand for a shake. Medli looked up into his eyes in wonder. "Your eyes… your touch…."

"Your eyes…your touch…" she repeated in Ancient Hylian. "You really are out of your own time, aren't you?"

"Yes. You are the… Sage of Earth, correct?"

"Yes… I am. I should bow before you, Hero of Time."

"Don't bow, please. It makes me feel awkward. I'm really more of a regular guy than people of this time seem to think. I'm just trying to get home. I was told that I needed to speak with someone here. Val..Valor? I cannot seem to remember the name I was given."

"Valoo, the Great Valoo. He is a powerful dragon and is the local patron god for us Rito."

Medli turned to everyone assembled. "He's the real deal," she announced. "He speaks the old language fluently and with a specific accent. He also has a 'feel' to him. The powers the goddesses have given me as a Sage speak well of him. Be nice to Rinku like you do Link."

Gasps in the crowd gave way to cheering.

"We really shouldn't waste time," the Hero of Winds said. "We really need to see Valoo."

"Sage Medli," Rinku asked.

"Yes, great Hero of Time?" Medli asked, turning around.

"From what I can make out of the broken words Aryll's told me, I'm supposed to give you this. We got it when we were attacked by big bird-monsters out on the sea."

"Oh?"

Rinku handed her a large, golden feather.

Medli blushed. "A golden feather. Did Aryll tell you that Rito give each other these as a sign of romance?"

Rinku blushed deeply. "N-no! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be rude, it's not like that! Aryll said it was for good friends!"

"Good friends' indeed! Don't worry about it. I don't think she understood what these really meant. Very few outside the tribe do! Come on, let's go see Valoo!"

Valoo's first words to the Hero of Time came as a shock.

"I can sense who you are, Hero of Time. You slew my mother."

Rinku stood upon a rocky outcrop looking up at the ponderous body of the dragon. Link and Medli stood beside him.

"What did he just say?" Medli asked, taken aback at this revelation.

"I do not understand…" Rinku lamented.

"I bear you no malice," the dragon said, "I was merely stating a fact and something that you need to know. You are the Hero of Time. In the past age, you slew a dragon named Volvagia."

Rinku hung his head and closed his eyes, deep in thought. "Yes, I did. I had no choice. The Gorons would have been killed, and possibly all the villagers and refugees in Kakariko Village. I tried to save the dragon, but in the end, I was forced…"

The Hero of Time had one peculiar consolation in having been sent back in time to relive his lost childhood. In his world, his Hyrule, some of the killing that he'd done had been undone. He had no regrets in re-killing the undead or in dispatching magic-spawn and dangerous wildlife. He did, however, have regrets over the occasional sentient being that fell to his sword. There were a few monsters that were able to change loyalties, if given the chance. Encountering these always made him think too much about the ones that hadn't that he'd had to be decisive with. More than that, he did live with the knowledge of having killed actual people.

Koume and Kotake haunted the young man's dreams. They were exceedingly wicked and had technically undone themselves with their own spells, which he'd merely reflected back upon them as they were trying to murder him. Still, it was the Master Sword tight in his grip that had given them final blows. It was said that the sword was holy and could only take life by the will of the Goddesses. Link of Time had watched the hags' spirits ascend, in fact, which surprised him, but made some sense when he thought hard about the weapon they'd been killed with. Some swords could eat souls - the Master could presumably save them, or so he liked to think, at least to assuage his guilt. When time had been reversed for him, so had Koume and Kotake's deaths – although they had been rendered no longer a threat to Hyrule.

One of the Hero of Time's biggest regrets had been Volvagia. There was no way around it. There had been no victory in the slaying of the dragon as there had been for other monsters. While other beasts that held the temples and sacred places had been demons, spells and phantoms, Volvagia had been one of ancient Link's childhood friends, a pet he'd rescued from Hyrule Market. Volvagia had run away before he'd been forced to take his seven-year nap. Navi had said something about dragons his age having a need to find a girl dragon to be with. The young Hero liked to think in the new time he'd been given, that Volvagia was somewhere free, a wild dragon. In this timeline, like everything else he'd killed in his artificial maturity, Volvagia was dead.

"Volvagia was my mother," Valoo intoned.

"I thought they were a boy…" Rinku said slowly.

"She laid a clutch of eggs deep in the heart of her mountain. I knew her but a season and was the only hatchling to survive to grow strong and be blessed by the Goddesses as an earthly deity. While I was still a mewling, my mother became enchanted by a wicked and destructive spell. I still remember watching what became of her. Her soul was locked away. You freed it, Hero. Do not regret killing her. It was the only way to free her spirit."

"Thank you," Rinku said, tears sliding down his cheeks.

"This is precisely why I embody the Future for you, Hero. I was the young of one of your enemies and I grew to inherit this world – as full of hope and promise as the waters fill the Great Sea. I grant you a measure of my power so that you may return to your own world and embrace your own future."

"I accept it with gratitude, Lord Valoo."

"Go now to the Forest Haven. An old friend is eager to see you."

As Medli, Aryll, Link and Rinku made their way down the mountain trail on the newly-constructed paths the Rito had made for wingless visitors, Rinku tried to shake a memory from his head. In his mind, the big, sad eye of the freshly-severed head of his old friend stared up at him, sparkling with tears. He'd been as quick and clean as he could. Volvagia had died as herself, but deeply confused, unaware that there had been a spell upon her. Her expression was pure agony, a look of "I thought you were my friend, why did you hurt me?" Rinku hoped to the Goddesses that her spirit was free and had hoped it had forgiven him as well her son apparently had.

"Hyup!" The Hero of Winds made little jumps as he wandered down the trail. Rinku smiled, walking steadily behind him. He wondered how many regrets the boy had gathered in his journey as a Hero.

Chapter Text

TIME’S CASTAWAY

Chapter 7: The Past

Both the Links' eyes lit up upon entering the Forest Haven. Link of Outset had told his sister much of this place. Aryll loved it. She played tag with the Koroks and chased the resident fireflies.

Rinku, for his part, was overwhelmed. Link lost track of how long the young man stayed on that giant lily-pad, raised into the air, talking with the Great Deku Tree in private conversation.

"Your green clothes do not deceive me?" the Tree asked, "You are the Hero of Time?"

"The one and only," Rinku answered.

"Link, my precious boy… it has been far too long. You are merely a Hylian. You should have gone the way of spirits by now."

"You speak a little differently than you did when I was younger," Link observed. "No more 'thees' and 'thous' and 'arts.' You look different, too."

"I have changed with the Age. The last I saw you, I had just been reborn as a sprout and I spoke with you casually then. My old manner was already dying when I died. You have changed very little. Tell me, child, do I speak with a ghost?"

"No," the Hero of Time answered, shaking his blond head. "I…uh… time traveled. I did it without meaning to. I have been displaced. I did not come here just to catch up. I was told that you are the Guardian of the Past. I need your power to help me get home."

"It is done, my power is with you" the Great Deku Tree said calmly. "It must be troubling to you to have been displaced. I can sense the sadness in your brave heart. All the same, it does my spirit glad to see you again. Not long ago, I was fading, but the Hero of Winds helped my seedlings to grow. If I feel myself fading once more, I can go in peace, for I have not only his friendship, I have seen my lost son again."

Link of Time just stared, his eyes glistening. "Has this Age… been good to you?" he asked.

"Yes," the Tree answered. "My forest has been reduced to this little island haven, but I have had the love of my Koroks and I have seen the rise of two Sages… Three to count the one you once knew."

"Saria…" Link whispered, bowing his head. The young man gritted his teeth in bitterness. Just as those he had slain in his first adventure remained slain in this timeline, so, too had the people he'd failed to save.

To be true, he never was really sure what had happened to the five Sages he'd awakened. He never knew if they'd merely awakened to their elemental powers – their calling by the goddesses, or if they'd been killed and awakened only in spirit. The Hero of Time knew that even dead Sages held some power – although living ones were far more potent in their abilities. Link suspected, however, that Darunia, Ruto, Impa, Nabooru and…. Saria – his best friend in the whole world – had died to come into their powers. After all, when he awakened from his "nap" to meet Rauru, the old man had said something about lacking a body.

Each Sage he'd awakened had gone in before him to the Temples, impatient to wait for him or wishing to assist his quest. Koume and Kotake had forced him to fight a brainwashed Nabooru himself and they took her after that. Thinking that the Sage was a monster at the time (covered head to toe in armor that he'd stabbed through the gaps), he had hurt her very badly. The witches may have murdered her in her weakened state or may have even left her to die of wounds he'd inflicted. Link had never ascertained the truth. The larger part of him did not want to know.

Darunia had gone in before him to fight Volvagia. Link couldn't imagine any outcome other than the Goron leader being eaten. The boy still had nightmares about Morpha and Bongo-Bongo. His bones ached thinking of Morpha, - a remembrance of being thrown against the Water Temple's walls, wondering at the time if the demonic amoeba was trying to soften him up for digestion as well as kill him. He'd seen some bloody bones in the poison pool in Bongo-Bongo's lair. He'd always wondered if they'd been poor Impa's.

Saria had said goodbye to him after he'd broken the Forest Temple's curse. It was a goodbye that had struck him as similar to the one she'd said to him when he'd first left the forest – and Kokiri children did not leave the forest. He'd taken his life in his hands when he'd decided to trust the Great Deku Tree's words and leave. Saria as a Sage had told him that she was unable to live in the same world as him anymore.

The Sages had aided him and enabled him to defeat Ganondorf, but their aid had a decidedly spiritual bent to it. Link was sure that even as he had awakened them that he'd not saved their lives.

"What troubles you?" the Great Deku Tree asked, snapping the Hero out of his thoughts.

"Oh, nothing," Link lied, "I was just lost in nostalgia."

The Tree lowered the lily-pad so his boy could walk upon level ground. Instead, Link got his boots wet in the stream as he stepped over to the bank. "Who came…" the young man struggled, "Who came after Saria moved on?"

"Our tribe's current Sage is Makar, Sage of Winds," the Great Deku Tree answered. "He is currently at the Wind Temple. He comes back home sometimes, riding the breezes. He is a dedicated violinist. He and the Hero of Winds are the best of friends. Before him was Sage Fado."

"Fado…" Link trailed off. An image of a little blond girl from an earlier time came to him. "I remember Fado. She had an affinity for strange things, like lore of the undead. I never though of her as Sage-material."

"He," the Deku Tree corrected.

"He?"

"Our Sage was a Kokiri-boy."

"Must be a different 'Fado,' then."

"He was your friend. Don't look so surprised, Hero of Time. Everything of the sacred forests changes form to fit the Ages. I changed. The Kokiri became the Koroks. Fado remained a Kokiri, but came into his true form and decided to be called as such. As my children willed themselves into their current forms, Fado also changed his presentation by will. Even I have female aspects in that I produce fruit and seeds, despite being called in a masculine manner. My Koroks are both and neither when it comes to the male and the female. Fado may have taken on a Korok-form had he not met with tragedy."

"Tragedy?"

"Sage Fado was murdered by Ganondorf when he rose to infect the world again – in the time without you. Makar keeps contact with his spirit."

"Hmm," Link said, pacing a little on the grass, "If the Koroks were once Kokiri is anyone I knew here?"

"Yes and no."

"Yes and no?"

"Some of my children were born after your time. They that remain from your time merely remember a little Kokiri-boy named Link. They cannot know you as the man that you are now."

Link looked down at his toes.

"Would it ease your sorrow to know who is who?"

"I think it would."

"See my children as they play with the Hero of Winds and his sister. Consider their forms. Do not a few seem familiar?"

"The Know-it-All Brothers!" Link exclaimed, "And Hollo – he used to run our play-store!"

Link looked back to the Great Deku Tree. "Where is Mido? I don't see anybody who strikes me as him in a new body."

"Mido left the forest," the Tree answered.

"He…"

"As one Age passed into the next, I gave the Kokiri a choice. They could stay in the forest and take on new forms or they could leave to live as Hylians do. Mido was interested in what life was like as a Hylian. Along with Saria, he knew the truth about you. He left because he wanted to be like you."

This left Link wide-eyed. "He wanted… to be like me?" he whispered, putting a hand to his chest. Most of the memories Link had of Mido were of being bullied by the red-haired boy. Even if they weren't physically fighting, Mido had always devised some emotional torture for him. There was the name-calling and the accusations that Link was only half-a-person due to his lack of a fairy companion. Even after he'd acquired Navi, Mido hadn't let up. Mido had accused him of killing the Great Deku Tree when he'd died of Gohma's curse. No amount of explanation Link had of trying to save their tribe's father was sufficient and Mido had spread the rumor. Link and Mido had come to a sort-of grudging, silent reconciliation in the end, but the idea that a person whose once-delight was in being unspeakably cruel to him had wanted to be like him left Link bewildered.

"He had a jealousy of you that you never knew," the Great Deku Tree gently explained, "He could sense your strength."

"He left the forest…"

"And lived as a Hylian apart from the forest's magic."

"That means…"

"He aged, just like a Hylian."

"Which means that I cannot say anything to him now…in this timeline, at least," Link said with a defeated sigh.

"His fairy told me that he'd lived a long life when she'd finally returned to me and that he'd found a measure of happiness."

"I was certain I'd seen one of the Koroks out on a small island on the way here. Why are they able to leave the forest?"

"Do not tell the Hero of Winds this, for it would trouble him; in their current forms, my children lack immortality. However, they shall live as long as trees do. That is the way things must be in the current Age."

Link spared a glance at Aryll and his successor, "Because…" he began, "in this age, the future belongs to the young – to the ones that will bring forth the next Age." The Hero of Time smiled a small smile.

"You are of Farore," the Great Deku Tree intoned, "but, indeed, you have gained Nayru's wisdom in your journey. Rest in my Forest Haven as long as you like before continuing your quest."

Link wished to sleep here tonight upon the soft grass, beneath his father's branches, like in old times.

The Hero of Winds taught the Hero of Time how to sail upon the air using the sacred Deku Leaf. Rinku's adult body did not allow him to sail for as long as young Link could. Link, himself, was beginning to notice that he could not fly as far as he used to.

Aryll played with the Leaf for about ten minutes before she decided that she liked rocketing out of the Deku Blossoms without it better. She'd tuck and spin and play a game she called "cannon" with the bright flowers.

The Koroks could speak a small amount of Rinku's language on about the level that Aryll could. Only Hollo could speak it fluently. He and Makar had bothered to keep up their studies of the old speech for ritual purposes. The rest had known it once, but had allowed themselves to forget it. Hollo didn't believe the Hero of Time when he'd tried to tell him that they'd once known each other. The Koroks, however, were fascinated by the young man.

"You have a familiar scent," Hollo explained. "It is different than merely a Hylian odor, too. There's something strong about it… and warm."

Rinku smiled. "I did take the opportunity to bathe in the stream."

"That is good. The Forest Haven waters will revitalize you. What is even better is the medicine I am brewing for your journey. I've seen it close up open wounds on our swordsman."

"As long as you're not charging an arm and a leg for Deku sticks and weak shields anymore…"

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Science is my passion, big-swordsman. I give my successes away for free – to those I trust. My medicine does work better on flesh than on wood. It does nothing to stop the flow of green sap, only the red. Why do you think that is, big-swordsman?"

"Perhaps you are working from a deep memory," Rinku answered, "Perhaps the gods have destined you to help people outside your own family. I am sure your creations have saved the life of little Link there by stopping the flow of the red sap."

Just then, Link crested a rise, waving and shouting. "Rinku! Hollo! Come on! We're gonna play 'Pitfall' with my grappling hook!"

It had been an exhausting day for Rinku. He was the first to fall asleep. The Koroks had returned to the canopy of branches above. Link, Aryll and Rinku had bedded-down in the grass near the roots of the Great Deku Tree. Rinku's sword and shield, along with Link's sword and shield rested against the Deku Tree's trunk. Link and Aryll huddled in blankets watching Rinku snore softly in the bare grass.

"I hope he's having peaceful dreams," Aryll said. "He looks happier in sleep than he's been in a while."

"He is dreaming memories," the Great Deku Tree said, as softly as he could.

"Hope they're good ones," Link said with a yawn, stretching himself out.

"He is reliving the Forest Play," the Great Deku Tree answered, "He always opted for one of the lesser roles."

"How come?" Aryll asked. "He's good at lots of stuff, so he'd be a good lead!"

The Tree chuckled lightly. "Rinku' never was a good actor," he said, "A person of action is what he is. He'd get nervous in front of his friends and speak his lines in monotone."

"Aw, poor Rinku…" Aryll began. She looked up to the Tree. "It's okay. My brother's a Hero, but he can't swim!"

"Can too!" Link shot back.

"Not well!" his sister teased. "I always beat you in racing around the island! You choke and flail after a few minutes!"

"Yeah, well…" Link said, sitting up and crossing his arms, "Maybe I don't need to swim, okay? All I need is a good sturdy boat."

"I bet Tetra's had to give you mouth-to-mouth."

Link's face turned bright red and sweaty. "How - You're just a little kid! You shouldn't say stuff like that!"

"Link and Tetra sitting in a tree, k-i-ss-i…"

"Stop it! That's enough!"

Rinku rolled over in his sleep, muttering something in Ancient Hylian about wanting a bottle of milk that wasn't seven years old.

Rinku's nose twitched. He heard the music of strings. It was a song, a gentle, beautiful song. He opened his sleepy eyes and rose up on one elbow. All of the Koroks were gathered around him as well as Link and Aryll. In front was a chubby little Korok he had not met before playing a violin that resembled a leaf.

"Makar, Sage of Winds," Aryll introduced.

The chubby little Korok bowed. "I regret not returning to the Forest Haven sooner," he said in the ancient tongue.

"Nice wake-up call. Thank you. That was beautiful."

"It is my honor to play for the Hero of Time."

Rinku rose to his knees. He dared not stand up as he felt it slightly rude to tower over the polite little Sage.

"Why did it take you so long to return to our forest, swordsman?"

Rinku was taken aback. The voice he heard now was like Makar's, but unlike Makar's. It was as if two people were speaking at once. A pale green glow emanated from Makar's heart – or at least from the area of his body a heart would be if he'd had one. Rinku did not know if Koroks had physical hearts. He knew through bitter experience that Deku Scrubs did not. That had been, perhaps, the most frightening thing about the curse-transformation he'd experienced in Termina. The Deku Mask had been nearly as frightening for him as the Fierce Deity Mask with its extra-active heart (that was a mask he'd hoped he'd hidden well enough for it never to be found again). In Deku form, whenever he'd felt his heart race or pound heavily, he knew that it was merely a ghost of memory – because the organ was absent.

The Hero of Time watched the glowing of Makar's heartwood and saw something come out of it. A translucent figure stood beside the little Sage. The spirit spoke.

"I asked you, Link… why has your return taken so long?"

"F-Fado?" Rinku asked the late Kokiri boy.

"You have changed and so have I. Don't be alarmed. I know you were told why I am a ghost.  I still have a fascination with Stalfos."

"I'm kind of… displaced at the moment," Rinku explained.

Fado gave him a solemn look. "I prayed for you, you know, I and the other Sages. We prayed for your return. The world fell. You've got some nerve to show up now."

"Fado, I…" the Hero of Time sighed, "I had no idea and I could not return, even had I known. Zelda sent me back in time. In a sense, this isn't even my universe."

Rinku went onto explain, as best as he could, all he'd learned about alternating timelines, rifts in universes and other such things. He spoke of Termina and how it had needed his help (he had no idea if similar events had transpired in that country in this timeline or not).

"Perhaps this is a mistake of the goddesses," Fado muttered, "or a mistake of Lady Zelda. I played my violin for her, you know, in a bygone age. She remembered you fondly and made sure you were remembered by Hyrule."

"My Zelda, but no longer my Zelda," Link sighed. "And you died violently, so I have heard. I am so sorry."

"Hey, don't worry about it." Fado replied. "I'll not trouble you with the details of my death, but at least I didn't become a Stalfos. My successor, Makar, is a good Sage. Your successor is a good Hero. He found Makar for me and together, they gave us the sea its current peace. The world that is now and here is a world that is meant to be."

"It was good to see you again, though you're quite different than the Fado I remember."

"I'll play for you anytime, Hero of Time," Fado said before spinning around in the air and returning to Makar's heartwood.

"My, that was strange, wasn't it, elder-swordsman?" the little Korok squeaked. The other Koroks did not seem to be phased at all. Link and Aryll acted as though they'd seen nothing at all.

"A little." Rinku said with a smile. "I think I'd like to hear you play just one more time before we set out to sea."

Chapter Text

TIME'S CASTAWAY

Chapter 8: The Present

Standing on a sandbank at Greatfish Isle, Rinku spoke with Jabun. He did not speak for very long before the huge whale-fish sank back beneath the waves, content with having shared his power with the young man.

Rinku had learned that Jabun was the mature form of the Zora guardian, Jabu-Jabu he'd once known. Jabu-Jabu had fled when Ganondorf had made his conquest of Zora's Domain. Rinku did not understand this and had asked for an answer. The whale-fish had not been cowardly – he'd merely been young then, a child with little understanding of what was going on. Moving on a feeling that the Hero of Time would come to save his people, he did the only thing he knew to do to avoid becoming sushi for Ganondorf's table. When he'd fled his island in the present era, he'd done so only after all the people had safely evacuated. Rinku had also asked the fish if he'd still had a taste for beef. Jabun had said something about his recent lactose intolerance.

Link and Aryll had watched Rinku and the whale-fish talk. Aryll could make out a few words here and there. When Jabun sank, Rinku turned to them and pointed to the place in the sea where he'd been.

"Huh?" Link asked.

"He said something about bein' inside Jabun," Aryll said.

"Not romantically, I hope," Link said, making a face.

"What?" Aryll inquired.

"Er," Link said, looking up and whistling in a failed attempt at innocence. "Uh, pirate-talk, sorry."

Rinku spoke to Aryll some more, gesticulating with his hands.

"Oh!" Aryll said, "He says something about 'inside stomach' or 'inside guts.' Rinku, that's gross!"

Rinku echoed Aryll's face of disgust as if to say "Yeah, it was pretty gross," before going on with his little story.

Aryll gave him a scolding look and took him by the hand. "Now, Rinku… I know you're the Hero of Time, but you can't expect us to believe eeeeverrrything you tell us. Don't make up lies!"

Rinku gave her a confused look.

"What? What did he say?" Link asked.

"He said something about a Princess Paperweight," Aryll explained. "That he had to carry Princess Paperweight around inside the fish-guts to fight a jellyfish and that there were cows or something."

"Now that we've seen the three guardians, where do we go to next, again? It was you and him that saw the Great Fairy, not me."

Rinku pointed to Link. "Ding-dong" he said.

Aryll laughed. "Yeah, Big Brother is a ding-dong! You got that right!"

The man gesticulated, trying to make an imaginary something look "tall" with his hands, then pointed at Link again. He tried his best Modern Hylian. "Ding-dong. Jabun says Wind-Hero needs to ding-dong at Divinity-Tower top so we can go Undersea."

"The Tower of the Gods," Link said, putting a hand to his chin. "There's a huge bell at the top of it. I rang it the first time… the first time I saw the old kingdom. I wonder how it can be, though. Hyrule beneath the sea was flooded when my friend gave his final wish to the Triforce. It was washed away. I don't understand why the gate to it would open again…"

"Well," said Aryll, "The Great Fairy did say something about the Tower of the Gods, and if Jabun confirmed it, I guess that's where we're going!"

"Let's go back to the ship," Link said. "If we're headed to the Tower of the Gods, there's something I have to give both of you."

The party boarded and Link ran down into the hold. "Come on, you guys!" he shouted. Rinku and Aryll blinked and nearly tripped down the steps when the bright daylight became darkness. They blinked and let their eyes adjust. Link drug a chest out from a shadowed corner. "Go on, you two open it," he beckoned.

Aryll popped the latch. As the lid came open, there was an ethereal light and swelling music that culminated in a "da-na-na-na!" sound. Rinku looked shocked.

"Why is it doing this?" Aryll whined.

Link laughed. "It's a music-box chest. I picked it up in my travels. It stores things like normal, but it makes opening it dramatic, like you're getting something special every time! Isn't it great?"

"Make it stop!" Aryll demanded.

"Alright," Link said as he pressed a gem-like button on the back. He looked at Rinku, who was holding up something in his hands above his head and contemplating the treasure he'd just discovered. "You got eyepatches!" the boy announced.

"Eyepatches?" Aryll asked. "What would we need those for? We all have two eyes!"

Link took one of the patches from Rinku, careful of their respective Triforces, and placed it on his head. He covered his own left eye with it. It was made of leather that had been dyed green and meticulously stitched. It had brass studs in the center in the shape of three interconnected triangles – the Triforce emblem. The patches that remained in a puzzled Rinku's hands were plain – one black silk and the other cracked, brown leather.

"This one's my personal patch," Link said. "Tetra had it custom made for me. Sometimes monsters see me wearing it and run 'cause they see the emblem and know who I am. The other two are from Nudge and Niko. I paid them so they can get new ones on Windfall. They've been wanting new ones, anyway."

"What are they for?" Aryll asked again, "Our eyes are fine."

"They're for battle," Link explained. "You know how you and Rinku walked down here out of the bright sunlight and were blinded? These keep that from happening. When the pirates see a monster-ship we want to raid some distance off, we'll put these on to adjust one eye to the dark, that way, when we have to fight below decks, we just switch the patch and we already have an eye ready to see. You sacrifice depth perception and some peripheral, but it's really pretty handy."

"We aren't going to be raiding any ships, Big Brother."

"I know," Link answered, "They're for the Tower. It's really dark in there when you first sail in and I don't know if there are any monsters still lurking. I'd like not to be caught unaware. Ever have a chu-chu drop on you out of nowhere? It's not fun. Can you explain all this to Rinku? He probably knows this trick, being a seasoned warrior and all."

Aryll did her best to explain the eyepatches.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rinku replied.

"Um… just trust Big Brother, okay?" was all Aryll had to say.

The entrance to the Tower of the Gods was indeed quite dark. The trio sailed into it and switched their eyepatches around. Indeed, the old pirate-trick aided their visibility. Once they'd adjusted fully to the dark, they took the silly things off. The tower was silent save for the gentle lapping of waves upon the stones.

Aryll held the grappling hook. She panicked when she saw something strange, just resting upon a staircase. The creature was perfectly still. She walloped it with the hook, anyway. The creature did not move and the grapple was covered in gunk. "Ew!" Aryll said, touching the green slime.

Link took out his spoils bag, a little knife and a small tin. "Hold the hook out, like that." He scraped the green gunk into the tin and sealed it, putting it away.

"Chu-chu jelly," he explained. "It may look gross, but it's valuable. People make medicines out of it. The green kind recharges the magic in Hylian blood. It's pretty invigorating."

Aryll's eyes looked to the monster she'd procured the jelly from. It had not moved and whatever passed for its eyes were clearly closed. "Is it already dead?" she asked.

"No, looks like its sleeping. And if you look over there, there's some bokoblins sound asleep. I think since I defeated Ganondorf, the tower's holiness must have put everything to sleep."

Rinku reached out to touch one of the bokoblins cautiously. He slipped something off its neck and regarded it with a puzzled expression.

"Oh, you can keep that if you want," Link said. "Though I don't know what you'd want with a joy pendant. I know some girls like them."

Rinku bent down and handed it to Aryll. The girl laughed. "I'll wear it later," she said, pocketing the prize.

Link brought out his sword. "I wonder if we should just kill the rotten things, make sure they never wake up again."

Rinku, seeing the unsheathed sword, shook his head solemnly. "Honor," he said in clear Modern Hylian.

Link put his blade away. "You're right. There's no sport in killing things in their sleep, even if they are monsters. Come on! If everything in the Tower's asleep, we should have no trouble reaching the top!"

Link took his grappling hook and used it to ring the great bell just as he did the last time he was here. It sounded clear and true as the Triforce on his hand glowed. Rinku's Triforce piece glowed. Everyone looked over the edge of the tower to behold a strange circle forming in the sea water below them, near the entrance of the Tower.

They clattered down the stairs and through the lifts they'd come up and back to the boat. Link steered it into the luminous patch. Down they went. Rinku's face took on a look of panic as they drifted down into the dark waters.

"Its okay, Rinku!" Aryll assured him, taking his hand. "Isn't it strange? We can breathe!"

Once Rinku realized this, he calmed. This felt just like when he'd first lost the Ocarina of Time, drifting in the ocean, buffeted by the waves and slowly drowning. The water was as air to them. Not only could the heroic trio breathe, they could see clearly. The water distorted some things before their eyes, but for the most part, objects were clearly visible beneath a cast of blue. There were towers with ragged flags whipping gently in the currents.

The ship landed upon the silt seafloor among ancient brickwork. Then, as if they were all in the bottom of a giant bathtub and the plug had just been pulled out, the ocean around them drained away. Rinku, Link and Aryll were left dripping as they stared up at a sky made of rippling water.

"This is…." The Hero of Winds began, "This is just like it was before – a land in a bubble and without wind."

Link lowered the deck and practically jumped out of the boat.

"What are you doing?" his sister called as he began running up the steps of the palace they were parked beside.

"If it's like it was before… the king! The king might still be alive somehow!"

The boy disappeared into the darkness of the castle entranceway calling "Your Majesty? Daphnes? It's me! It's Link!"

"Wait, Big Brother!" Aryll called, running after him.

Rinku took the scene in. He slowly exited the ship, staring up at Castle Hyrule's towers, broken bricks and tattered flags. Tears rolled silently down his cheek.

"Big Brother?"

Aryll caught up to a gasping Link in the grand hall and put a hand on his shoulder.

"He's not here," Link moaned. "I thought… maybe… there was a chance…"

Aryll hugged him. "You miss your friend like I miss you when you go out to sea." She turned as a shadow entered the hall. "Rinku?"

Rinku walked slowly, giving careful consideration to everything around him. He struck Aryll as being zombie-like as much as Link was being ReDead-like. The young man walked up the steps upon which were the remains of a broken statue. He knelt, running his hands over the severed bronze head, caressing the nose and cheeks.

"Yeah," Link cautiously ventured, "It was a statue of you. Ganondorf broke it."

Suddenly, Rinku lost all composure. He doubled over with sobs. Link put a hand on his back and rubbed it. "I'm sorry the statue broke," the younger boy said, "I couldn't do anything about it."

"It's not the statue," Rinku said with a puffy, wet-eyed gaze. "It's… I'm touched that people would do this for me. And they're gone now… all those people are gone."

"Rinku!" Aryll exclaimed, "Your Modern Hylian has gotten really good!"

Rinku sniffed and wiped his nose on his gauntlet. "I didn't say anything in Modern Hylian."

"We must be able to understand you here!"

"It is his kingdom," Link said, shrugging.

"Not entirely," Rinku corrected as he got up from his kneeling position. "I never actually entered the castle in this timeline. I could sneak into the garden easily but never made it inside the palace. This castle is actually a re-build. The one that I knew was replaced by Ganon's Tower. This hall, though… it bears a remarkable resemblance to the one I am a man of court in back in my timeline."

Rinku walked down the steps into the main hall, hung with tattered tapestries. "The Hall of the Hyrule Castle I know is just like this – only new and neat and without statues of me. Zelda's father wanted to honor me that way for the various things I've done for the kingdom, but I declined. I told him that statues are for the dead, not the living. The Royal Family addressed the court here and held feasts and dances for all the people of Hyrule during the great holidays. Anyone could show up, from the wealthy nobles to the common farmers. That's how Zelda liked it, even if her father didn't always approve."

Rinku took Aryll in his arms and spun her around. She squealed in surprise and delight. "Zelda and I used to dance just like this. May I have this dance, little princess?"

The two danced about the hall until they stopped abruptly to admire an old painting. How the paintings upon the walls had survived the deluge was anybody's guess. Beads of water glistened upon the oil paint.

"Hey, these people look a lot like the pirates and Tetra!" Aryll observed.

"Yeah," her brother said, scratching the back of his neck. "Tetra is Zelda – one of the Royal Line - and she looks just like that when she's wearing the dress and stuff, but I don't think the girl in the painting is her."

"She's not my Zelda," Rinku added. "Mine is… when I left my reality…a couple of years older than I am - an adult. Even when she was a little girl her features were a bit different. Her nose was a little more button and she's a bit longer in the ears."

"I think the girl in the painting must be Tetra's grandma or great-grandma or somethin'." Link added, "Tetra said she was born on her mother's ship, out in international waters and that's why she's free. She has no country."

"Except Hyrule…" Rinku whispered, brushing the canvas with his fingertips ever so lightly.

"Now that we've found a mainland," Link explained, "We want to create a New Hyrule there."

Rinku turned to him and smiled. "Make it a shining kingdom," he said, "a golden land of the gods."

The trio wandered outside over a path past gardens and fields. They stepped indoors again to explore another wing of the palace, untouched, this time, by Ganon's wicked magic, or so it would seem. They scoured every nook and crag for a small blue flute.

They wandered into an area filled with six huge armors, standing in a circle. It reminded the Hero of Winds of the palace basement, though this was a different area. The armors, as one, suddenly moved. Both the Links brought out their swords.

"Run and find a place to hide, Aryll," the younger Link commanded.

"What… what are they?" Aryll questioned, refusing to let go of her brother's shield-arm.

"Darknuts," Link spat. "They can only be defeated if you cut their armor off from behind. They're vicious and strong. This breed of beast has killed me at least five times – and those are just the times I remember."

"K-killed you?"

"You remember how we revived Rinku with a fairy? That's happened to me before. We have three bottled fairies on us. Like an idiot I left the rest back in the cargo hold of the ship! Rinku's got one in his pocket and I've got two. Take one. Hide or run back to the ship or something."

"No! I won't leave you! Or Rinku!"

"Aryll! This is serious! I don't want to lose you, either!"

An enormous sword crashed down for them. Aryll removed her grip by instinct. Her brother drew the monster-knight's attention by slicing ineffectually at its armor with scrapes, sparks and clangs.

Aryll scrambled behind a fallen marble pillar. She watched as Rinku divested one of the creatures of its armor (its helm remained). He deftly avoided its sword and stabbed it through the chest with his own. Another beast crept up behind him. Aryll gritted up her courage and let fly with the grappling hook she'd snitched from her brother's pocket along with the bottled fairy he commanded her to take. The grapple snagged the creature's helm and pulled it off, revealing a jackal-like head beneath.

It turned toward her and threw its sword. It hit its mark. The sharp side of the blade did not strike Aryll, but the blunt force of the flying weapon threw her straight into a wall. She saw bursts of light. She felt her neck snap.

"Aryll!" Link cried.

Aryll felt a refreshing sensation as her fairy danced over her, restoring her health and life. Link de-armored the helmet-less darknut and stabbed him through the stomach.

Aryll watched in horror as a darknut's sword came for Rinku's neck. It sliced clean through leaving a thin line of red that lasted but an instant. Before his head could fall from his shoulders, Rinku was restored by his fairy and his would-be killer was toast.

"It's not Game Over yet!" Link snarled as he dodged and sliced the armor-bindings of the last two darknuts that were left. By the time the battle was over, he'd used the last fairy to cure having his ribs crushed in from the blunt side of a blade bigger than he was.

Rinku was injured.

The Hero of Time staggered, disoriented, bleeding from a cut on the forehead and a deep cut to his right thigh. It looked, to Link, disturbingly similar to an injury a fairy had brought him back from once – and for the moment, the group was fresh out of fairies.

"Rinku! Wait!" he called, "Where are you going? Rin- LINK! Stop right now!"

Rinku either had not heard him or did not care. He used the wall for support, disappearing into the darkness of a corridor. His blood-trail was easy to follow. Link drew a bottle of blue potion from his tunic. He'd brought a few of them from Hollo's hollow in the Forest Haven. Aryll walked beside him, disturbed at Rinku's blood on the floor. There was too much of it.

They caught him in an antechamber. Light streamed down from a tear in the ceiling. The young man laid himself down on a long flat stone shelf. "Rest," he muttered. "Just need to lie down and rest a bit. I'll be just fine."

"I've got potion," Link said gently. "You have to drink it. You're disoriented – sick from blood-loss and pain and stuff. Here. It tastes nasty and will make you burp, but it will make you feel better, I promise."

As the younger Link reached out, he stopped and stood shock still.

"Big Brother?" Aryll inquired.

"No," Link whispered, shaking his head, "No…"

Rinku lay before him stretched out on the stone slab. He was pale and his sword was un-sheathed and laid atop him, his hands clasped around it almost prayerfully. Link remembered some story Orca had told him about how warriors were laid out for their funerals. The younger boy saw people milling about, ghost-like, as if he wasn't witnessing immediate reality. Rinku looked older, too. He was still clean-shaven and he didn't have much in the way of wrinkles, but his hair had gray streaks, mixed in with the blond. His ears drooped slightly at the tips. A young man who was well-dressed in an old-fashioned way in a red and gold royal tabard laid flowers on Rinku's chest. A gray-haired woman dressed beautifully and wearing a light crown wept. A knight in armor knelt before Rinku's stone, striking the tip of his sword into the ground.

Link watched, mesmerized, as the people faded and Rinku, it would seem, turned to stone. No – what the boy was seeing was a stone casket, carved in relief in Rinku's likeness. Vines grew over it in an instant. A forest grew in among the brick walls of the chamber, which broke into so many mismatched ancient ruins.

A large and handsome wolf darted out from behind the vine-overgrown sarcophagus. A small sinister-looking creature wearing a helmet made of stone and shadows rode it. The wolf and his rider darted away to be replaced a curious-looking rabbit or hare that bore fur that looked pinkish in the dim light. After that a traveler wandered into the clearing. He was dressed in a similar manner to Rinku, but his hair was darker and wilder. He seemed to be wary of his shadow. He seemed lost, like a person looking for Wisdom. He carried a wooden sword.

The strange scenes subsided. Rinku sat up and took the bottle of blue potion from Link. For a moment he saw the boy's clothing change as well as subtle features of his face. He wore a brimmed cap and a black vest – a uniform like one Rinku had seen donned by people who worked with certain kinds of machines. Behind him stretched a vast country and tracks into a mysterious future.

"What's going on?" Aryll questioned as the two Links stared at each other, boring holes into each other with their gazes. Rinku saw another world surround young Link – a world just as oceanic as the one above Hyrule, but the adventure was one with fairies and an old sea captain. Link stared at Rinku and saw his features become younger. He saw a great, grinning moon behind him and four giant creatures – and dancing masks, lots of strange, disembodied faces.

They stared at one another some more. Images of Rinku's childhood in an ancient forest surrounded by children and their fairies spun around him for Link to see, as well as images of Hyrule Castle in its days of glory, a desert of thieves, a river of fish and a mountain of rocks and dragons. Beyond even that, both Link and Rinku saw a world of sky and magnificent birds large enough to carry human-type riders.

Somewhere within all this was seen one warrior divided into four before becoming one again, another time-traveler who danced through the four seasons with his animal friends, a boy who found a hidden world by becoming as small as a mouse and many other wondrous stories told in ghosts and impressions.

"What next?" Rinku asked himself, "A Hyrule cloaked in desert as deep and vast as the Great Sea?"

Aryll did not see what the boys saw so clearly. She saw many confusing images, all colliding into one another and did not know what to make of them. Link took Rinku by the hand – their right hands, mindful of the Triforce – and led him out of the room, still sucking on the medicine bottle.

"Thank you," Rinku said. "My head doesn't hurt anymore and I think my leg-wound is mending."

"It stopped bleeding," Aryll said, "and you've got your color back. Rinku, I was so scared!"

"What just happened to us?" Link asked. "I-I think I saw your funeral… and after that, this weird wolf…"

"I saw your descendant in a frontier-land," Rinku answered calmly. "I think we've found the Nexus the Great Fairy talked about, a place where time and possibilities connect. I think we saw each other's futures and maybe our pasts, too."

"It doesn't bother you that I saw your funeral?" Link asked.

"Nope. I felt dead for a few minutes there, anyway. I know that I have to die, eventually. Heroes have to make way for new Heroes someday. As long as I don't know the details of when or how, I'll be fine. When you think about it, I'm supposed to be 'dead' in this world. It doesn't feel right being a relic. I'm glad I was spared seeing your funeral, though."

"I see something blue over there!" Aryll said, pointing to what she saw.

"That's the area where I left Ganondorf," Link commented.

"Ganondorf…" Aryll said with a shiver. "Big Brother, I don't want to go in there."

"He can't hurt you anymore, Aryll," Link contended, "I made sure of that. Actually, you might want to see the statue. You can see how I impaled him and know that he'll never come after you again."

Aryll cowered behind her brother as she followed him. Rinku strode ahead and greeted them with an ear-to-ear grin. He held, in one hand, a small round blue flute. "I got it!" he exclaimed. He stepped aside and knelt down by Aryll. "It's okay," he soothed, "He's very dead."

The trio looked up at the stone behemoth that was once the terror of both their worlds.

"You jammed the sword in there pretty hard, didn't you?" Rinku commented, looking to Link. "Knowing that blade, it went right though his brain, his throat, his heart and maybe even into his stomach. Wow."

"I had to protect the Great Sea," Link said slowly. "I kinda felt sorry for him, though. He was lost in the past and he said something about originally wanting Hyrule for his people, who lived in a harsh land."

"I knew his people," replied Rinku. "They weren't all bad – not all good, but not all bad, either. When he took over Hyrule, it wasn't for his people – it was for himself. They suffered along with everyone else. The Gerudo remained in their desert while Ganondorf took the fat of the land for himself and kept only monsters in his employ. He lusted after destruction and lost his mind with Power."

"My grandma says all evil kings claim to do things 'for the people' but are usually lying. I still felt weird after killing him, though." Link looked to the Master Sword, then to his left hand, which he flexed. "I had no idea I was capable of that kind of fury."

Aryll peered cautiously out from behind him at the stone Ganondorf. She stuck her tongue out at it.

"You didn't want him to take your sister from you ever again," Rinku said with a soft smile. "Or your Zelda, or anyone you cared about." He walked around the statue, regarding it with a critical eye. "He looks like he put on some weight since my time."

"When he started causing trouble," Link began, "Most of the fish disappeared from the sea. There were some magical talking fish left and lots of gyorgs, but most of the normal fish were gone, which was very bad for Outset, 'cause it's a fishing village. Tetra and I used to joke that Ganondorf just ate them all."

"He still looks strong," the Hero of Time mused, "He's carrying his weight mostly in the chest. He has more the look of an elder sorcerer. In his younger days – when I knew him – he was muscle-bound all-around and looked more like a stereotypical bully."

"Oh, he was a bully!" Aryll chimed. "He had me and the other girls all locked up and his moblins would poke us with their spears through the bars except for this one nice moblin that Maggie liked. If Big Brother hadn't shown up, I think he was gonna sacrifice us an' drink our blood!"

"He disabled me with a magic-filled glare," Link confessed. "…When I first confronted him, when the Master Sword wasn't charged-up right. I still tried to fight him. There was pain through my body and I couldn't lift the sword. I would have been a goner if it weren't for my friends. My friends saved me."

Rinku put his hand on Link's shoulder. "He did unspeakable things in my era," he said. "So if you ever feel guilty over turning him into…this…know that it had to be done."

He held up his ocarina. "Are you two okay to get back home?" he asked.

"Yeah," Link said with a nod. "We'll just ascend back through the portal and sail home. We even have more fairies and potions in the hold I forgot to pocket. We'll just sail home, or maybe head to Windfall to meet my outlaw friends... living it up like real scurvy pirates at the coffee shop."

"Then," Rinku sighed, "I guess it's time for me to go home."

The young man regarded Aryll and Link with a sad smile, his big blue eyes wet at the edges. Aryll wept and Link hugged him.

"I'll remember you," Rinku said, "I know what I'm going to name my firstborn daughter now." He chuckled softly. "And you can read about me in storybooks, though you know the truth about the 'triumph forks."

Link laughed at this.

"Take care of your world, Hero of Winds," the Hero of Time said before putting the Ocarina of Time to his lips. He played a simple song. He finished it and found the younger Link and his sister still staring at him. He tried again, reversing the notes. Puzzled, he changed the tempo.

"It's not working," he observed, stating the obvious.

"Maybe the magic's weird in this place?" Aryll suggested. "He may be dead, but we are standing near Ganondorf. Maybe he's being a meanie and not letting you go home."

"I can test it," Rinku declared. He quickly played a highly magical song he knew as the Song of Storms. Freshwater rain pattered down from a sky enveloped by a ceiling of waves that remained intact.

"You made it rain?" Link asked.

"Yeah," Rinku answered. "It means the magic still works. I'd try the song I use to call my horse, but she's not anywhere near here. I can't use any of the ones that help me travel to places. There's another song I can use to test it that's even more powerful than the rain-brining song, but it pretty much requires someone to be dying and I'm not about to hurt anyone just so I can test the magic by healing a soul."

"I wonder if the rain-song would work on the winds with my Wind Waker."

"The magic's obviously still good," Rinku said. As a final effort, he played a song he knew well, in its original tempo; the Song of Time.

He fell to his knees, holding the Ocarina of Time out before him in both hands. His face was ashen. It wasn't working. He couldn't go home!

Chapter Text

TIME'S CASTAWAY

Chapter 9: Twenty Minutes and Two Hundred Years

The Hero of Time sat upon a rise looking out at the windswept grass and dunes of Outset Island. The morning was gently breezy, slightly chill and the air smelled of the sea.

"Maybe you not meant go back," Sturgeon said, walking up next to him with his staff.

"The Great Fairy spoke of my descendants in my world. And there were the Nexus-visions."

"Maybe they for our world. Maybe descendants and future here, boy."

The Hero of Winds, who was sitting next to the elder Hero and his elder islander, understood only part of the conversation, but enough to get the feel of it. He clasped Rinku's right hand. "I think you should build New Hyrule with us," he said, "Sail with Tetra an' me to the mainland. Maybe we need a piece of Old Hyrule to build the New."

"Don't be sad, Rinku," Aryll spoke up, popping her little blond head out from where she was laying in the grass, "We are with you."

Rinku smiled. He watched Rose fuss with her sons on the dunes below, straightening their clothes and trying in vain to wipe Zill's nose. A professional pictographer was here today, Lenzo of Windfall. He was here to do family portraits to earn a few rupees, lured here by a letter from Link and Aryll's grandmother. The two were very friendly to each other, Rinku observed. He asked Aryll about it.

"He… related to you?" Rinku prodded in what he could muster of the Modern speech.

"Oh, no," Aryll said shaking her head. "He's a friend of Link's though. Grandma says he and she used to date, but he's not Grandpa."

"Hmmm," Rinku muttered, watching the two older people walk arm-in-arm until Lenzo needed to set up his equipment. He'd set up on the dunes so the pictures would have a nice backdrop of the beach and the sea. The light was favorable to this.

Link and Aryll ran off down the hill when their grandmother called them. Rinku watched them go. Aryll suddenly turned back.

"You're coming, Rinku?"

The young man put a hand to his chest. "You want me?" he asked.

"Yeah! You're family, too! The picture will not be right with no you!"

Rinku slowly rose to his feet and followed the children down the hill. His heart swelled and soared when he posed with the family of the Hero of Winds – young Link standing in front of him in almost-matching clothes, Aryll to his left and Grandma in next to Link. They smiled for two takes. Rinku was asked to stay as Lenzo broke out his wide-angle lens to pictograph the entire population of Outset Island, all standing together.

When he was done, Grandma gave him the extra pictograph of the family. "I want you to keep this," she said. "I have a feeling you have a long journey ahead."

He stared at the color picture smiling fondly. Maybe it was alright if he never found his way home. Perhaps he'd already found his way "home," in a sense. The Hero of Time had fallen in love with the Hero of Winds' world – the sea, all the sunny little islands and their people. They were not the people he'd grown up with, but they were their descendants. This was almost like Termina, except instead of leaving never to return, it would seem that he had arrived never to leave. He was still looking for a way – still playing the Ocarina of Time. He'd hiked up to the Great Fairy's spring only to find it devoid of the Great Fairy. It had not dried up – there were little fairies there, but their mistress had gone to somewhere unknown. He'd called and called for her and had even played music to try to coax her out of hiding to no avail. Rinku was grieving now – the loss of his home – yet he was feeling at home because of his kind new "family."

He looked at his left hand and wondered just how two Triforces of Courage were meant to coexist here. Rinku wondered if, perhaps, one of them had transformed into the element of Power, for the Triforces were mysterious. If so, he suspected that young Link held Power without knowing it. The kid was balanced enough in the virtues to handle it, if so.

Rinku didn't completely understand what Link had said to him earlier that day, but he'd heard "Nuuuuu Hyrule." He wouldn't mind helping the people of this world to create New Hyrule. Maybe the Ocarina had brought him here because this was a world in need of his help, after all.

Lenzo was packing up, ready to sail back to Windfall Island. The children shouted and played. Their respective parents and guardians yelped at them not to dirty their clothes and pleaded with them to change into their "play clothes." Link sparred with Orca on the beach. Rinku thought of joining them.

"Isn't your arm getting tired?" Orca asked as he blocked one of Link's decisive strikes. Rinku clapped. As the last ring of steel reverberated through the air, his long, sensitive ears caught the sound of air being chopped. He looked up.

"Makar?" Link called, lowering his sword, "Medli?"

"Yeah," Medli said breathlessly as she landed. "I had a dream that the Sages were supposed to help the Hero of Time get home. I confirmed it with Valoo."

"I had such a dream too, swordsman," Makar added. "The Great Deku Tree told me that all of the Sages are to play in concert with the Hero of Time and that you are to conduct!"

"Me…conduct?" Link asked.

"With the Wind Waker!" Medli chimed.

"What song am I to play?" Link asked.

"The Song of Time, of course," Makar said.

"Hey! Aryll! Get over here!" Link called.

"Egghead Brother!" Orca called.

The two arrived and there was a great flurry of chatting. Rinku, though confused, was able to gather what he was to do.

"Are you sure? Really?" He asked, "I get to go home?"

"We should try it, Rinku," Aryll said, taking him by the hand. "Look, your Triforce is glowing!"

Indeed, it was glowing gently through the gauntlet. It did not always show, even when the gauntlets were off. Rinku recalled how he was unaware that he had it at all during most of his original adventure after waking up from his seven years of sleep. He'd removed the gauntlets for bathing and to replace them with upgrades (he hadn't worn the golden gauntlets in a long time, however. He only ever wore those when he needed to lift very heavy objects and for formal palace functions). All the time he'd had his gauntlets off, his portion of the Triforce only showed itself when it wanted to.

"I'm going home!" Rinku shouted. He ran across the beach with his arms out, and then cried out again in Modern Hylian "Home! I go!" and he laughed for joy. "Zelda!" "Zelda, I am coming! Zelda, Saria, Darunia, Impa, Nabooru, Ruto, Malon, Epona, Talon, Ingo… the king, all my friends, I am coming home!"

Then he turned to the two Sages. "Will it truly work?"

"I would not doubt the word of the Great Deku Tree, elder swordsman," said Makar. "I do hope my performance is up to high enough standards."

"I'm sure it will be," Rinku said, bending down.

"I don't know the Song of Time," Link said. "I've heard Rinku play it, but I don't think I know it well enough to conduct."

"It is a very ancient song," Medli elaborated for him. "My teacher used to play it to help Valoo to go to sleep. He found it very nostalgic." She then turned to Rinku. "It is not time to conduct yet," she said, "But for the Wind Waker to conduct, he needs to hear the Song of Time."

Rinku brought out the Ocarina of Time and played for the young Hero's benefit.

"Let's see," Link said. He brought out his sacred baton and tried to copy the notes of the song upon the wind. Rinku, still amazed at hearing the wind sing though he'd heard it before when they'd sailed, winced when Link missed a note. Rinku played again for him. Link practiced again and hit the notes perfectly. He conducted the wind again just to be sure.

"We've got it!" Medli exclaimed. "Are we ready?" "Ready?"

Rinku shook his head vigorously. "I want to say goodbye."

"Alright, fair enough."

All the Outsetters were gathered around the Heroes and Sages. Rinku dropped to one knee to hug Link and Aryll's grandmother first. He began to weep.

"There, there, Rinku!" the old woman said. "Who would have thought the ancient Hero would have such emotion? We'll all be fine. We'll remember you well. You brought much excitement to our little island!"

Abe and Rose's children hugged him tight. Zill sniffed up his snot-glob so he wouldn't get Rinku's tunic gunky. Rinku stood and Sturgeon lifted his glasses and nodded to him. "You practice with me in ancient language do much good to my learnings," he said.

Rinku let out a small, soft laugh. "Keep practicing," he said. "Ask the Great Fairy to teach you more if you can."

He slapped Orca on the back in a manly farewell. Orca grunted. "You gave me the best fighting of my life," the old warrior said.

Rinku hugged Aryll tight. He took the shield from his back and gave it to her. "A new shield for your family since your brother uses the one you have. Don't worry about me. I can always get another one. It's a standard Hylian Knights shield."

Aryll looked at her toes, and then took something out of her pocket, holding it out to Rinku with both hands. "My telescope. Grandma got it for me, much saving, but I like the one I gave Big-Brother better. Take it."

"Hey!" Link said, "I never heard the end of it from you when I kept your first telescope!"

"Well," Aryll snarked, "That one went away forever, too! Unless you're going to give it back to me!"

"I need it!"

Rinku laughed and then he turned to Link. He dropped to one knee and struck his sword into the ground before him. "I honor you, Hero of Winds. Take care of your sister, your grandmother, your island and your sea. Build the New Hyrule and keep protecting your world from evil."

Link, only having understood a portion of the words understood the spirit. "I will," he said, nodding, "And your legend will live on in me, Hero of Time."

Aryll turned to him. "When did you get deep?"

"Well, I had to say something! Ready?"

Rinku sheathed his sword and stood. He put the Ocarina of Time to his lips. Makar and Medli readied their harp and violin, respectively, and Link brought out the Wind Waker. As he made the first stroke in the air and the first notes of music played in concert, the spectators gathered gasped. The two Links' eyes went wide. There, standing next to Makar and Medli respectively, were two transparent figures – a Kokiri boy with a spectral violin and a Zora woman with a spectral harp.

Although he'd met Fado before, this was the first time Rinku had seen Laruto. The ghost reminded him of everything he'd loved about the Zora people – their grace and elegant forms.

The Sages, living and dead, played for the Hero of Time as he played to the conducting of Hero of Winds. The beach rippled and the air took on a hazy effect. Ghostly shadow images appeared as if upon a screen – a shadow-puppet theater played upon a skein of white silk.

"Link?" a voice called as if through water. "Link, where are you?"

"Zelda," Rinku said as he walked toward the haze. He took one last glance back. "I'll try… to return… if I can. If I can… I love all of you. Goodbye."

And with that, he walked into the ripple. It closed up behind him and he was gone, leaving only the sand and surf of Outset Island.

Link staggered into the royal garden out of a flash of light that appeared before Zelda, temporarily blinding her. She blinked and her Hero of Time was before her, looking bedraggled.

His shield was absent from his back.

"Zelda!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "Oh, are you a sight for sore eyes!"

"Link, what's the matter with you?" The Crown Princess of Hyrule asked. "We've only been apart twenty minutes. I am done talking to the head of the Carpenter's Guild now. You wanted to show me something out here?"

"Yeah, yeah," Link said, reaching into a pocket. "I was composing a song for you, but I've got something even better, here!"

The young man passed something into the young woman's hands. She was puzzled. "Three… forks tied together?"

"They're the Triumph-Forks!" Link laughed. "Oh, Zelda, I've got a story for you! I've been gone! I've…"

"Gone where? Link, what happened? You're so flustered. You're worrying me."

Link pulled a pictograph from his pocket. Zelda gazed upon it.

"Oh, princess," the Hero said, "You've been gone twenty minutes, I've been gone two-hundred years!"

The Hero of Winds and his sister stood upon the beach watching the sunset.

"Do you think he'll ever be back?" Aryll asked.

"I don't know," Link said. "It's kind of like when I lost King Daphenes. His last words to me and to Tetra were about the future – how the world was up to us."

"Rinku meant the same thing, didn't he?" Aryll said, leaning on her brother.

"Yeah. This is our world. His world is Hyrule. Ours is New Hyrule, and we'll build it together on the winds of a new tomorrow."

Aryll gazed off across the beach to the place where she'd found Rinku washed up. It was vacant now, save for a few tangles of seaweed. She'd never forget the place or the day she'd found Time's Castaway.

THE END.